The Graduate Movie Essay

The Graduate directed by Mike Nichols in 1967 mentions the story of a young adult, Benjamin Braddock, who graduates from the college recently and has no plan to shape his future. Benjamin, who is tired of people’s maintaining recommendations about his occupation, is seduced by middle-aged Mrs. Robinson who is his father’s boss’ wife and his prospective lover Elaine’s mother. In this paper, Benjamin’s situation will be analyzed by befiting from Ericson’s psychosocial developmental theory, his problems in choosing occupation will be mentioned and Mrs. Robinson’s life crisis will be examined thanks to Erikson’s same theory.

Firstly in the movie it can be seen that the main character, Benjamin, experiences the central crisis of early adulthood intimacy vs isolation, the sixth stage of Ericson’s psycho-social development. It means that he should find his intimate partner to

**ref** Benjamin’s attitudes toward Mrs Robinson and her daughter Elaine can be taken into account as unhealthy and healthy trials of this stage. After he graduates, he encounters people who constantly give some advices to him about his future because of his favorable achievements. However, he does not know what he wants to do. This situation may be resulted from the failure in constructing the correct identity in the previous stage in his adolescence because if he had developed a health identity, he would now have his own principles, preferences, goals regarding his life. As Erikson states that the adolescents who do not succeed in identity vs. role confusion stage are more likely to experience failure in intimate relations.**REF** Benjamin’s need for intimate relation causes him to find himself in the middle of a relationship he does not actually want and this forbidden love with Mrs. Robinson which