In the movie Pan's Labyrinth, Ofelia escaped the frightening and commanding presence of her stepfather though her fantasy books and her immense imagination. This theme of escape from oppression is also evidenced in the novel The Book Thief, where Max escapes his oppressive reality through writing and his friendship with Liesel. Liesel herself was able to escape the reality of the war that was around her, and the death of her brother through her love of books and reading. This may lead one to wonder whether there is some truth in these fictional tales, is it possible that books and the act of writing can help one to survive an oppressive situation psychologically, and what factors contribute to an individual overcoming oppression?
According to psychology, the ability of humans to adapt to negative life situations and withstand stress and adversity is centered in a concept called resilience. An individual with resilience may experience the stress and pain that oppression and adversity brings; however, they are better able to control their negative emotions, rather than allowing these emotions to control their thoughts and actions. Resilience is not something people are born with or without, it is a trait that is developed. However, there are causational factors that contribute to the development of resilience. A few of these factors are: Having at least one close friendship and or having a
close relationship with one's family. having high self efficacy, and feeling some perception of control over one's life. Being compassionate and actively helping others , having a special talent, holding religious beliefs, and having good social skills just to name a few factors (APA Resilience) (Belsky 208). Many of these are also factor...
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Killingsworth Roberts, Sherron, EdD, and Patricia A. Crawford, PhD. "Literature to Help Children Cope with Family Stressors." Https://www.naeyc.org. N.p., Sept. 2008. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Murray, Bridget. "Writing to heal." http://www.apa.org. American Psychological Association, June 2002. Web. 20 Apr. 2014
Pan's Labyrinth. Dir. Guillermo Del Toro. Perf. Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, and Sergi López. Warner Bros., 2006. DVD.
"The Road To Resilience." Http://www.apa.org. American Psychological Association, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014
Tolkien, J.R.R. "On Fairy Stories." Theology Network - Theology of Everything - On Fairy Stories. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
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Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.
A example why people are brutal in The Book Thief is when the bomber planes were dropping bombs on the small town killing many people. My thoughts on this is even though the Nazi started this doesn’t mean they should kill innocent families.
In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak communicates an over-arching topic. This topic is; all objects convey dark tones. The idea is transmitted into the writing subtly throughout the excerpt, as well as the story.
Human nature has many elements that reveal the growth and personality of a person. In Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief”, the author successfully portrays various aspects of human nature through Hans’ conflicts that originate from the tough reality that he lives in. Elements of human nature can be seen as a result of Hans’ constant struggles with guilt, kindness, and love.
"Pan 's Labyrinth" is directed by Guillermo del Toro, is a magical realism drama. The screen shows the magical world of bizarre situations, a fictional out of Pluto 's daughter "Ophelia" to roam the world. To 1944 as the background, the fascist murder of guerrilla fighters as a real-world story. The whole film myth and reality are intertwined, is a complete metaphor and reflection on the Spanish civil war. One side is the little girl innocent fairy tale, while the Nazis are inhuman torture and slaughter. Two living scenes intertwined in a film, brings out a moral and human conflict. This is the child to see everything in the eyes, and what we see, it seems that the other world.
In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, beauty and brutality is seen in many of the characters. Rudy, Liesel, and Rosa display examples of beauty and brutality often without realizing what exactly they are doing, because it is a part of their human nature. Zusak not only uses his characters, but also the setting of the novel in Nazi Germany to allude to his theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature. The time in which the novel is set, during World War II, displays great examples of beauty and brutality, such as the mistreatment of the Jews. As a result of this time period, the characters have to go through troubling times, which reveals their beautiful and brutal nature in certain circumstances. Zusak uses his characters and their experiences to demonstrate the theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature in the novel.
Resilience is having the motive to go through hard times and ‘bounce back’ from them and learnt how to deal with certain situations. To be resilient you must have a positive point of view on life. Anh’s book ‘The happiest refugee’ He was born into a 1970’s Vietnam, He and his family were forced to leave their country due to seeking safety and freedom from war. Anh uses resilience through his comedic, selfless actions. Resilience has allowed Anh to improve the quality of his life, and the lives of those around him.
If you were a German citizen during World War II, do you think you would be a Nazi? Most people would say no even though, in actuality, most people would be. It is because people need to succumb to societal expectations to survive in a society such as that of Germany during WWII and in the book, The Book Thief, this theme of individual versus society is explored with people complying and fighting social expectations. Sometimes people side with the Nazi Party out of fear of being targeted and other times fight against Nazi Party because of love for their family and fellow man with usually terrible consequences. In The Book Thief, the theme of the individual versus society is shown many times with characters conforming and defying social expectations.
In class, we learned that family resilience is a family’s ability to bounce back after dealing with a harsh situation. Elasticity and buoyancy are two essential pieces in family resilience. Elasticity means the family is able to conserve their established patterns after dealing with a harsh situation. On the other hand, buoyancy is the family’s ability to rapidly recover from a tough situation. Reading this article, helped me realize that both, families and children, need social support in order to build resilience. In fact, this article states that children need school and community support when trying to overcome a hardship. In addition, the textbook and the article provide similar ways which adults, especially teachers, can help children be more resilient. For example, both state that teachers should focus more on their students’ strengths and less on their
Suffering can be found on three different levels, mental, physical and emotional. In an everyday life the three levels can be found at school, at work or even on the streets, for example people who are living on the street generally suffer mentally. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak the topic that suffering exists on three different levels is shown throughout the book. In The Book Thief the author shows that the three levels of suffering exist and impacts multiple characters throughout the book . The three levels of suffering impacts many characters such as, the Jews, Liesel and Max.
Within psychology adolescence is described as a period of transition from childhood to adulthood. It is a period between year twelve and late teens, when the physical growth is complete, the person becomes sexually mature and establishes identity (Nolen-Hoeksema, Friedricson, Loftus & Wagenaar, 2009). During this period of development, the individual has to face several risk factors, which are considered as a hazard on normal psychological development of an individual (Colman, 2009). This means, that experiencing them is associated with vulnerability, developing mental health problems and problematic behaviors such as for instance greater risk taking, school related deviance and school failure, teen pregnancy, substance misuse, aggression, violence or vandalism or in other words delinquency and antisocial behavior (Perkins & Borden, 2003). Therefore risk factors have a potential not just endanger the present developmental period, but also jeopardize the future biological and psychological development (Beam, Gill-Rivas, Greenberger & Chen, 2002; Perkins & Borden, 2003). However, not all young individual will respond to risk factors by developing negative outcomes. Some develop resilience and adapt to changes and stressors (Crawford, 2006; Perkins & Borden, 2003). Furthermore it has been suggested, that risk factors are desirable for developing this kind of positive outcome (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). According to Fonagy et. al. (1994) (cited in Crawford, 2006) resilience can be defined as normal development under difficult conditions. It leads to overcoming and coping with the negative effects of exposure to risk factors (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). To maintain this, protective factors need to be put in place (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2...
Rudolfo Anaya’s, Bless Me, Ultima and Guillermo del Toro’s, Pan’s Labyrinth are two coming-of-age stories. Both the novel and the movie are full of events that contribute to the disillusionment of the main character’s childhood idealism and the realization of the real world they live in. Both protagonists absorb themselves in a mythical world full of fantasy and each receives exposure to religious theology and trauma by the violence of men. Despite the fact that Antonio and Ofelia have different familial role models and travel along different paths, their childlike innocence, disillusionment, and initiation into adulthood comes about through similar themes: myth, religion, and violence.
Resilience is defined as an important quality that enables people to cope with unfavorable situations and find ways to overcome the negative results. According to Allender, Rector, and Warner (2014I), people with resilience would have the required qualities to bounce back against threats and stressful situations, and recoil with an attitude of dominance, capability, and aspiration (p. 556). Thus, because of all its susceptibilities, the homeless population should be regarded and treated in a way that could encourage survival through personal’s ability to react positively to conflicting situations. Many studies have mentioned the relationship between an individual’s prior experiences with its form of resiliency, however they also emphasized on the individual’s education level, work training and qualifications, and other life’s experiences to help cope with difficult moment.
Resilience is something that I had learned through my hardship in senior year. It was something that was discovered during my most stressful time and saved me from further making myself sick and poisoning my own brain with thoughts of doubt.
Resilience can be defined broadly as “the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten its function, viability, or development” (Masten, 2014a p. 10). As we can see this definition can be applied broadly to any individual, community, computer, economy or other system which has to recover from some kind of disturbance in its system. At a first glance resilience might seem as something not so important in children development however it has a greater impact in their life. And the authors point out that it is not an inborn trait; rather it is something which can be developed overtime by a few factors. Therefore in order to understand resilience we have to find out what are the factors that lead to it? And how we can use them to build a strong resilience? Masten and Monn claim that for healthy development and overall success in life, children need “care, nutrition, skills, health services, learning opportunities”, and many other economic and social resources. They also need an array of “learning, communication, and behavioral skills” that depend on brain development and socialization. Therefore promotive factors for positive
The film Pan’s Labyrinth, by the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, has transcended and surpassed many records in the film industry. Pan’s Labyrinth contains many peculiar aspects that pertain to realism and to fantasy that make it distinct from other films. Del Toro displays the realistic and fantasy aspects of the film in such an unorthodox manner that many films have not even gone to the level of genius that is Guillermo del Toro. The protagonist, Ofelia, displays certain characteristics and other aspects that in turn gives Pan’s Labyrinth that sort of special charm that differentiates it from other similar films. The main character Ofelia and the structure or form of the story are what make the film, Pan’s Labyrinth, truly unique and special.