In the movie The Good Son, director Joseph Ruben highlights an array of psychological issues within the lives of each of his characters. Throughout the movie, Ruben showcases the characters’ struggles and experiences with grief after losing a loved one. It quickly becomes evident how main characters Susan, Mark, and Henry handle situations in their lives and what things influence them to act the way they do. Due to different psychological dispositions, these characters display both extreme and sometimes inappropriate behaviors throughout the movie. The movie begins with the death of Mark’s mother. Just before she died, she told Mark she’d always be with him and at first he didn’t understand, but he took it to heart. Not even a …show more content…
Due to her loving nature and maternal ways, Mark believes that his Aunt Susan has become his mother. Because he believes this, he feels safe, and comfortable enough with her to tell her about Henry’s misbehavior. Unfortunately, Henry has everyone on his side including his mother, Susan, who doesn’t believe her nephew Mark. One day, after thinking long and hard about what Mark had told her, Susan decided to wonder out to Henry’s shed. Here she found her deceased child’s toy, when Henry enters the shed Susan asks him why he had it. Henry quickly snatches it and runs. Once settling down, and walking through the woods, Susan asks if Henry killed his brother Richard, after Henry admits, he fakes suicide causing his mother to go looking for his body over the cliff he supposedly jumped. Once Susan was at the edge of the cliff Henry pushes her off of it – she catches herself, but as Mark intercepted the fight, both boys ended up hanging over the cliff braced to Susan’s hands. Having to make a hard decision, she decided to save Mark, and not her own son. As you would imagine, there are a lot of psychological aspects in The Good Son. Throughout the entire film, you can see each main character start to struggle with individual issues. According to Kubler-Ross’s Stages of Death and Grief, Mark is still in the denial stage, the very first stage, which is expected at his age, especially when considering the short
The father and son also have comparisons in their character, they have similar characteristics when it comes to being sensible. An example of this is when, the boy and the man come across a cannibal's lair. In this they find people being prepared to be slaughtered and eaten. In this instance both the man and the son fight to get out of the lair. They both feel the same sense of danger and unease proving that they compare to each other. Another instance of this is when the boy and his father come across other survivors walking along the road with weapons and a pregnant woman. This chills both of the characters and they hide and wait for
Mark’s psychological problems become more and more clear to the reader throughout the book. Eventually Susan McConnell can’t take the guilt feelings and decides to tell the whole story to the cops, but Mark is not okay with this and decides to tie up Susan and burn down the house with Susan and Mark inside. This part of the book is most likely the climax of the book; at this point, the reader finally is certain that Mark has some psychological problems. After this suspenseful scene the next chapter immediately starts back at the house of Susan, she is still alive and does not want to talk about what happened. Her mother tries to convince her to speak up and tell what happened, her mom eventually reads her something about a certain personality:
In both Cowboys Don’t Cry and “The Father”, the father character and the son character at one point
The love between the protagonists in the times of hardship is the most profound relationship in the book and the strength of it raises the standard of the novel. The relation of the father and the son is very strong and symbolizes protection to the child. They take the initiative to struggle and live in an apocalyptic place which has been completely destroyed. The father is like the soul of his son and the very last hope for the son to survive .The son finds support in his son when he goes through the stages of loneliness and despair. It is a natural way for people to rely on others for support and by survival instincts; it is deeper when there is such a close relationship between a father and a son. McCarthy in terms of characterization makes the buy very innocent as he does not know how to differentiate between the “good guys” and “bad guys”. He wants to help everyone and on the other hand the father is very strong and is wise. He lives each and every day as a normal day so that he can keep his son strong as well. The father is very intelligent as he responds to his son questions thoughtfully to keep his son’s hope up. The father is very optimistic even when they are facing a hard time moving forward. To quote, “The lay listening, Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn’t fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn’t fire? Could you crush that beloved
Poetry is like a song without music, it has the ability to awaken your emotions and the ability to tell stories that can paint beautiful, relatable, imagery in the viewer’s mind. Upon reading the poem, “My Son the Man” by Sharon Olds, she presents a unique view on her bittersweet experience of watching her son gravitate towards manhood, “Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider” (line1), while realizing he is astute enough to escape his mother’s strong hold, “to learn the way out” (line 16). As a mother myself, I began to recognize how I can relate to the speaker’s challenges of understanding a child’s need to test limits and break free from dependency. I realized through the speaker’s obvious allusions to Houdini expressing the need to break free, the contrast used to convey the indirect references to Houdini, and the similes used to express emotion toward reflecting back on a time of innocence, accepting the need of a maturing child’s independence proves the strength of a mother’s love.
Father and Son by Bernard McLaverty 'Father and Son' by Bernard McLaverty is a short story which is set in
The boy is very warm-hearted and appears to struggle to understand that danger could occur at any moment, whilst his father knows a lot more about what some people, “the bad guys”, do in order to survive. It could be seen that the child is very naive and therefore trusts others more than his father. However his trust in others teaches his father a valuable lesson; that not everyone is a “bad guy”. For instance when the pair come across Ely, the father is wary about him but his son is adamant that they give him a tin of food. This shows to readers that the boy has faith unlike his father. Another example is when the son sees the little boy; he begs his father to go back and help him and asks if he can go with them. I believe that he wants to help others as
For this Case Study I chose fictional character Will Hunting from the award winning movie Good Will Hunting. Will Hunting was born in a poor region of south Boston, Massachusetts, an orphan, who lived with a very abusive alcoholic foster dad. As a kid, Will was subdued to frequent physical abuse by his foster dad, between getting beat with a wrench, and having cigarettes put out on him, Will dealt with a lot at a young age (James A. Frieden).
The novel All Good Children by Catherine Austen and article “Blind and Bullied” by Sydney Loney reveals that fighting against discrimination in society is well worth it and is the only way to make a change. The characters, symbols, and conflict demonstrate how the only way to be free is to fight against discrimination.
They’re always about something bad happening” (McCarthy 269). So by this statement, we know that the boy while empathetic, still feels negative emotions for himself. We feel as if the boy is what keeps the book going, the fire; he is the only one who can and will keep the story going because he is seen as something greater than all. After the father dies, we see that the boy finds a group of wanderers and joins them.
The movie Good Will Hunting an American Drama Film was directed by Gus Van Sant, and starring Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver and Stellan Skarsgard in 1997. This movie is about a man named Good Will Hunting who was a genius but chose not to live as a genius because of fear of past experiences and the ill treatment he received when he was in foster home. Some of the other characters in the movie were supportive and some were not supportive of him. This essay discusses Good Will’s personality traits and his interaction with the other characters in the movie. Good Will Hunting possessed the following personality traits, namely: independence, intense interest in a problem, and the need for stimulation.
She wanted to be a role model for her children and at the same time, she wanted to become friend with them. Helen valued education, and she wanted Julie to go to college and have a successful life. However, after she found out that Julie had secretly being together with Tod, the poor, unambitious man. She was disappointed, betrayed, sad. Julie moved out of Helen’s home. Later, when Helen found out that Julie and her husband Tod had nowhere to live, she let them move in with her. She is a permissive parent, yet, she cares about her children, provides them as much support as she can. Helen stayed calm when Gary told her he wanted to live with his dad for a while. I can see her heart was bleeding when she heard her son’s words. She gave Gary his father’s phone number anyway, and Gary talked to his dad over the phone and figured out the cruel fact that his dad didn’t care for them anymore. Helen wanted to comfort Gary but he refused to talk. I felt Helen’s guilt and desperation at that moment. After she broke into Gary’s room and found out that Gary was carrying the bag that contains pornography, she immediately asked Tod’s help to talk to Gary. She had a chance to talk to Tod and had learned that Tod came from a broken family. She had a better idea of who Tod was and his help to Gary gained Helen’s respect. Helen supported Tod and helped her daughter Julie overcame the tough situation in marriage. Helen
When Kevin sees his father almost dying, he begins to think of the fatherless children in the world. He extends grace towards fathers in general by thinking how important a role they play in a child’s life, regardless of the mistakes that they might make. After thinking about fathers in general, he then thinks about his own father and as Bailey puts it, “ The caring-the carefulness-which was the belief in holding on to something worth preserving and passing on. Love. Kevin felt the tide of emotion that had been at its lowest ebb flowing back into him again. He looked to his Dad”. (259-260). Instead of remaining angry at his Dad for previous conflicts or for accidentally shooting his brother, Kevin extends grace to his Dad when he chooses instead to think and remember about all the love and caring his father has ever shown him. When he begins to feel that love for his father, his emotions pick up and that gives him the grace to keep on going without emotionally breaking down.
In William Golding's novel Lord of The Flies he shows how evil exists inside of everyone, it is the situation a person finds themselves in allows evil to grow or be controlled. The three boys are an example of this. Jack who only thinks about himself he wants everything immediately which makes his evil grow. Ralph, however, thinks about others but at times can be selfish which can make his evil grow, but Ralph tries to keep his evil at bay. Simon on the other hand only thinks about others, he does not think about himself which stops his evil from arising. Therefore, control of the situation is control of evil self.
The boy who travels with his father finds purpose to survive in believing that they will one day find the good guys. In this he believes that they themselves carry the torch of being the good guys and finds hope in that. Throughout the novel, the boy expresses his heart for helping others several times when he gives an old scraggly man on the road a can of peaches, pleading to help a man who got struck by lightning, and by being worried about a boy who was alone they had passed on the road. The boy evidently through his actions expresses a need to help others. When the boy spotted another little boy from the road, he ran over to where he had seen him and searched for him. When the Father saw that the boy ran off, he grabbed the boy by the arm and said “‘Come on. There’s no one to see. Do you want to die? Is that what you want?’” Sobbing, the boy replied, “I don’t care, I don’t care” (85). The boy sees the little boy as alone with nothing and he feels like it is his responsibility to his own