Comparing two texts side by side has heightened our understanding of many of our society’s problems. Depression and family dysfunctionalities are often expressed by composers in their various texts. Texts such as the film, ‘ Ordinary People’ by Robert Redford and the novel, ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ by Peter Hedges are the kind of texts that help accentuate the destruction medical illnesses can cause to a family. Through the journeys of the protagonists, the comparisons of depression and dysfunctional families are highlighted by their respective composers.
Both Hedges and Redford has used different yet effective ways to reflect the problems of dysfunctional families. During his film, ‘Ordinary People’, Redford has employed various cinematic techniques in order to portray Conrad in a light that causes the audiences to sympathise and also empathise with his current situation. The mise en scene consisting of Beth, Conrad’s mother, hesitantly deciding as whether to walk out to talk to Conrad or not, helps emphasize the dysfunctionality of the family while the confrontational scene that follows it supports the idea of the family being ‘broken’. The director during those scenes, has switched between close ups of Beth’s face and Conrad’s face throughout the whole of the conversation uncovers what both Beth and Conrad has been trying to hide. While Redford has shown the family breaking apart through Beth, Hedges has displayed it through the mutual dislike for each other between Gilbert and his mother, Bonnie. When Gilbert starts to look more like his deceased father and was commented on this by his mum, Hedge took advantage and portrayed Gilbert to dislike his mother, as shown by his comments on her being a ‘whale’, and also his r...
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...nt to Gilbert. Conrad himself has been the active one in attempting to fix his depression. With this in mind, he asks for help from Doctor Burger. Illustrated by Redford to be the fatherly role Conrad has longed for, Burger helps Conrad along not by showing him the actual path, but by guiding him along letting him learn it for himself, much like how Becky is depicted by Hedges.
Applying these methods in order to evoke empathetic and sympathetic feelings of the main characters, both Redford and Hedges has built up scenes that heavily support the idea of dysfunctional families and depression in a more emphasized form in ‘Ordinary People’ and ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’. It is because of these subtle notifications in movies and books though, that reminds us of how cruel the world can be and drags us back to our senses, revealing to us the reality of our world.
Chapter 10 of Teresa Ciabattari book Sociology of families talks about the social policy and the future of families. The chapter starts by giving the readers a brief review of what we have learned so far in chapters 1-9. The chapter discusses the different approaches to what a family is and the changes of what the meaning of family is in the united states. The propose of the chapter is to get a better understanding of the book’s ideas yet to also see what the types of impacts they’ll have in our future society. The chapter is spilt into many categories such as Defining family, family change, family continuity, family diversity, inequality and social policy; housing policy and family inequality, state welfare policy and family, and so forth.
Throughout the life cycle, a person undergoes many changes. One matures both physically and emotionally as time passes. Emotional growth is quite often more difficult than physical growth. A person must realize his faults and admit to them before he can develop emotionally, while one does not need any self-analyzation to develop physically. In her book Ordinary People, Judith Guest depicts the struggles man must experience in order to reach his ideal emotional perfection. Conrad, the book's protagonist, and his father Calvin, were both searching for higher levels of emotional health. Conrad had to let out and face all the feelings he had repressed, while Calvin had to correct his confused perspectives on life.
raised, and the film’s bring the awareness to the forefront while also considering the underlying
Everyone wants a perfect family, but nothing is ever perfect. The family in “Why I Live at the P.O.” is most definitely less than perfect. When Stella-Rondo returns to her old home after leaving her husband and bringing her small child who she claims is adopted, much conflict in the family increases. Stella-Rondo turns every family member living in the household against Sister, her older sister, and every family member betrays Sister by believing the lies Stella-Rondo tells about Sister to them. Through much turmoil and distress, Sister becomes so overwhelmed with the unending conflict that she feels she must leave her home and live at the post office. In “Why I Live at the P.O.,” Eudora Welty strongly implies that the function of the family can rapidly decline when family members refuse to do certain things they should and do certain things they should not through her use of point of view, symbolism, and setting.
Gilbert becomes emotionally isolated due to the fear of judgment. The relationship between Gilbert and the family strained by the fear to act and the reality of his life he lives creates the alienated personality readers see. Throughout What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, examples of his fear of judgment crippling him begin to surface. Gilbert says, “Something is not right about all this food going to my house. Something is wrong inside me, I start to think, but I change the subject” (112). Gilbert desperately wants to express on how food negatively affects the whole family, especially himself. However, readers see that Gilbert cannot even argue with himself, demonstrating how fear really plays a role in both his thoughts and actions. Fear extremely hinders Gilbert’s ability to develop some sort of demonstration against his family and himself. The example also proves that Gilbert feels guilt, along with fear. Gilbert tries to hide the fa...
The therapist would work to sense the triangles that are currently formed between family members. Also find understanding of the family by use of role reversals along with challenging the family with putting universal principles at odds with the family’s beliefs. By creating unbalance with warmth and support, the therapist looks to increase family cohesion and harmony. The therapist will also investigate the family dynamic by allowing them to express and name the symbolic interactions that are shared so that can be uncovered and understood. Once the family’s symbolic and real curative factors are addressed, the therapist can push for growth and maturity in the family. Because the family is seen as individuals in a family unit for example established
In the book Stones by William Bell it is tells a story on prejudice, the supernatural, history, it’s continuous cycle of racism, and labelling. One of the most underlying themes in the novel is Parent-Youth Relationships. Majority of the book touches base on the two main characters; Garnet Havelock and Raphella Skye’s dysfunction within both their families, the main relationships are Garnet & his Mom, Garnet & his Dad, and Raphella and her Mom. The relationship between Garnet and his Mom is offbeat because they are neither close and neither distant from each other, they have each other best interest but aren’t best friends. Garnet and
Sociologists view the family as a universal institution that is central to social life (Powell and Branden 2007). The family is defined as a group of people related by descent, marriage, or adoption (pg 365). Marriage plays a pivotal role in families, marriage is the socially acknowledged and approved and often legal union of two people, allowing them to live together and to have children by birth or adoption (pg 365). The key to understanding the family are the concepts of endogamy and exogamy; endogamy is marriage to someone with similar characteristics in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, education level, social class,
Perhaps an even stronger testament to the deepness of cinema is Darren Aronofsky’s stark, somber Requiem for a Dream. Centering on the drug-induced debasement of four individuals searching for the abstract concept known as happiness, Requiem for a Dream brims with verisimilitude and intensity. The picture’s harrowing depiction of the characters’ precipitous fall into the abyss has, in turn, fascinated and appalled, yet its frank, uncompromising approach leaves an indelible imprint in the minds of young and old alike.
Ewing and Grady use pathos a great deal throughout this film to make the audience feel an emotional attachment to Etty, Luzer, and Ari. Then in turn, they use the emotional attachments to make the audience frustrated with the Hasidic community.
Depression causes many mental effects and in most cases, if not treated or helped, can result in suicide. In What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, the character, Bonnie, who struggles with depression and obesity, died of natural causes in her sleep. Anxiety and social isolation are common results from depression as well. For autism spectrum disorder, there is not cure for the condition. Teaching the child from an early age can help the case and make them a better learner for their future in education. While there is no cure for autism spectrum disorder, therapy sessions are the best help. In the case for depression and eating disorders, therapy is a great help as well. I chose this film because of the way it shows the lives of multiple characters who are suffering with a disorder. It shows emotions, hardships, and difficulty with taking care of another individual. My final thoughts on the movie are that while it is an older film, it still shows many excerpts on mental disorders. Every member of the Grape family had to deal with their mother and brother in their daily lives. The disorders are not diseases, but they are conditions. Conditions that develop from birth, childhood, or from an emotional period in their life. Therapy is the best form of help that a person with depression, an eating disorder, or autism can
In society today there tends to exist a nostalgia for the utopian family life of the past.
Interpersonal conflict is. Every relationship has conflict and determining on how the conflict is resolved or handled can make the relationship stronger or weaker. If someone is more easily to come up with a compromise rather than always getting their own way, they may have stronger relationships (Bevan and Sole, 2014). Television shows also use interpersonal conflict between their characters to find a solution or compromise in the end. Interpersonal conflict is all around us, it is how we handle that conflict that makes or breaks our relationships.
Whether a person’s life is something experienced authentically, or factually written down as literature, there are more complexities faced then there are simplicities on a daily basis. This multifariousness causes constant bewilderment and hesitation before any sort of important decision a person must make in his or her life. When it comes to characters of the written words, as soon sensations of ambiguity, uncertainty, and paranoia form, the outlook and actions of these characters are what usually result in regrettable decisions and added anxiety for both that character as well as the reader. Examples of these themes affecting characters in the world of fiction are found in the novel The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, and the play Glengarry Glen Ross written by David Mamet. Throughout both of these texts, characters such as Oedipa Maas who allows these emotions to guide her in her journey of self discovery, and Shelly Levene who is so overcome with these emotions that they become his downfall. For both of these characters, these constant emotional themes are what guide their most impulsive actions, which can generally also become regrettable decisions. Even though it is a distinguishing factor of human beings, when these characters are portrayed in print, it somehow seems to affect the reader more, because they are able to see the fictional repercussions, and also know how they could have been avoided.
When defining family, the U.S. Census Bureau defines it as "a family is a group of two or more people related by birth, marriage, or adoption, and residing together". Essentially, this definition pulls a broad pool of people together. In Jack's case, he considers his mother, father, two siblings, both of his grandfathers, his aunt, his wife, and almost newborn baby to be in his family. A household, on the other hand, is anyone that lives together in a particular space (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Jack explained that his household consists of himself and his wife. Soon, it was also consist of his newborn child.