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Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs In The Walking Dead

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Glenn Rhee is the main character and survivor of the outbreak in AMC's The Walking Dead. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the lower level needs are necessary for survival, while the higher-level needs are not. Before the zombie apocalypse, the needs that Glenn met were the physiological needs, which includes basic needs that are vital for survival such as water, food, and oxygen. Even though Glenn expressed displeasure at his job and wanted to do more, he still delivered pizzas to satisfy his basic need for hunger. However, some needs were not met like safety, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Glenn did not meet the safety needs since he did not have financial stability, job security, or permanent residence. Glenn was in a massive debt and was forced to steal cars to make a living. Additionally, his love and belongingness needs were not met since he had a distant relationship with his parents. Also, as he didn’t attend college and struggle to make ends meet when he felt he could do better, his esteem needs weren’t met. Maslow explained that the esteem needs have two levels (reputation and …show more content…

For instance, he entered a long-term relationship with Maggie and married her. He is portrayed as optimistic and humorous, which I can deduce he has a good relationship with the whole group. Once an individual has satisfied their love and belonging needs they are free to pursue esteem needs. In this case, Glenn met his esteem needs as he’s easily able to acquire any item his group may need with confidence and he’s seen by his peers as an essential member of the group as his skills that were once illegal have proven useful several times. Moreover, the self-actualization needs were met for Glenn. He reached his full potential and he accepted the reality about the world around him and was mostly comfortable with

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