A Beautiful Mind is a film about the life of mathematician, John Nash. This film is a window into the world of mental illness, exploring the schizophrenic life of John Nash. This film shows the underlying conflicts that his psychosis displays between personal relationships, being apart of humanity and pursuing his original idea. In this essay, I will explore the struggles that John Nash faces in the pursuit of his dream, creating an original idea. I will focus on the demands of psychological pressures that weigh on John’s social world, creating and perfecting his original idea, as well as looking at the effects on his relationships particularly with his wife, Alicia. In the beginning, John is unaware of the psychological world that …show more content…
The pressure and stress John feels from his code breaking and relationships, actually influences his schizophrenia to worsen and build momentum. He begins to have more intense hallucinations about code breaking for a man named, William Parcher. William Parcher only shows up in moments of great stress. Again, John is unable to see that William Parcher is only a figment of his imagination but to him, Parcher is incredibly intimidating and forceful. When Alicia becomes pregnant, John realizes that he needs to stop code breaking from Parcher. John builds up the courage to actually tell Parcher that he is done code breaking, as if he has some sort of innate knowledge of his condition. However, Parcher’s forceful manner coerced him back into his ‘code breaking’ work. When John’s family and friends become aware of John’s condition they try and find ways to help him but it’s impossible to force John to snap out of his psychosis. John feels invested in these delusions and they feel too real to shake, to John, his hallucinations of Parcher, Charles and Marcie feel overwhelmingly real. He struggles to differentiate what is real and what is provoked by his schizophrenia. To his wife and friends, it’s easy for them to compartmentalize that these are figments of his imagination. To John, these characters have been integral part of his life and in a way they’ve each individually given his a
John went through most if not all the symptoms of schizophrenia. John’s wife, Alicia, who was pregnant
The reader will start to fear for John’s safety mostly because they don’t know what will exactly happen to him. The uncertainty of John’s fate created an even more suspenseful outcome. By making John’s future unclear, the author was able to plant thoughts of unsureness and anxiety within the reader’s mind. Another internal event is when Alejandra went to visit John in the barn to talk about what Duena Alfonsa had said to him. After John Grady explained that he’s not allowed to be seen with her, Alejandra expresses the unfairness of her great-aunt’s order. At this moment, John starts to believe that he sees sorrow within Alejandra and starts to feel bad for her. He begins to feel concern for her and eventually agrees to disobey Duena Alfonsa and spend time with Alejandra. Right after John agreed to do whatever Duena Alfonsa asked him to do he breaks his promise once he sees Alejandra. His inner thoughts had an affect on his consciousness and changed his views on spending time with Alejandra. Due to John’s sympathy towards Alejandra’s apparent sadness, he makes the decision to go out with
The first conflict John faces is the loss of his mother. Tabby’s death both angers and upsets John. In any case, losing your mother is a horrible. It was especially unfortunate for John because he has no idea who his true father is. He is irritated that she never even got around to telling him who his real father is. It even makes him more resentful when he finds out she lived sort of a second life as “The Lady in Red”. The most tragic of John’s experiences is the sacrificial death of Owen Meany. John is absolutely traumatized by the death of Owen. Owen’s death is the reason John lives in Canada, hates America, and is stuck in the past. John still hasn’t even come close to getting over Owen’s death, and he never will. John even ends his memoir with “O God-please give him back I shall keep asking You!” (617). The trauma John has gone through has even damaged him sexualy. He is still a virgin and has never felt sexual desire. Katherine’s husband describes him as a “non-practicing homosexual” but he believes that his problems are caused by his
When John was led back into life in the futuristic society, he was mocked and treat as a strange attraction. He was at the awful end of a sick joke - people came from all over to understand this simple “savage” who has spent his life in curiously primitive manners. John was so poorly received, he went as far as wanting to commit
She has internalized John’s authority to the point that she practically hears his voice in her head, telling her what to think. She cannot help but feel the way she does, and so the move she makes at the end—focusing on the house instead of her situation—marks the beginning of her slide into obsession and madness. John is a symbol of her mental illness because it shows his authority over her and how she thinks she is not loved by anyone especially her husband. “His family has gotten into the habit of putting in his room things for which they could not find any other place, and now there were plenty of these, since one of the rooms in the apartment had
When a character enters a new environment with varying environmental and sociological influences, he or she experiences initiation. Although the initiation often brings a character into adulthood, John transitions from his savage lifestyle on the reservation to one laden with conditioning and governmental control. As John enters into the new society, citizens overwhelm him with observation, constantly shadowing him in an attempt to understand his identity and his origins. John evolves into a “zoo animal” character, serving as an educational figure for those around him while experiencing metamorphosis from life on the reservation to a new society in dystopian London. However, society’s treatment of John leads into his ultimate demise and self destruction as a character: “Drawn by the fascination of the horror of pain...which their conditioning had so ineradicably implanted in them, they began to mime the frenzy of his gestures, striking at one another as the
John’s domineering personality is seen throughout the story. He denies her choice of bedrooms at their rented home and “hardly lets me stir without special direction.” (Gilman 845) The most profound example of control is shown with
John pushes against the society’s standards. He is against taking soma, a drug that puts you are peace and goes against the social means. John takes the soma from workers at the hospital receiving their pay. “’Free, free!’ the Savage shouted, and with one hand continued to throw the soma into the area while, with the other, he punched the indistinguishable faces of his assailants. ‘Free!’ And suddenly there was Helmholtz at his side —‘Good old Helmholtz!’—also punching—‘Men at last!’—and in the interval also throwing the poison out by handfuls through the open window. ‘Yes, men! men!’ and there was no more poison left. He picked up the cash-box and showed them its black emptiness. ‘You're free’” (213). John hates people taking soma because it takes away their freedom, which keeps them from thinking and speaking freely. He continues to fight the system when he isolates himself at the lighthouse because he is so against the World State. He ends up not wanting to be in the world. He hangs himself to show everyone how messed up it is and prove himself to the world controllers.
The room that John picks out for his wife is upstairs and secluded. There are bars on the windows and the wallpaper has patches that have been ripped off. Would you want to stay in a room like this after already suffering from depression and anxiety? She tells him that she expected a room “downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window.” (217). However, she walks in to find a bed that is nailed to the floor. Imagine how scary that would be! John assures his wife and their family that she is fine. He thinks she will get better being in this room away from everyone and everything. Her “brother is also a physician and he says the same thing.” (216). She is placed into an uncomfortable environment and is made to be alone against her will. This is one of the reasons she loses her mind.
John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on
A Beautiful Mind illustrates many of the topics relating to psychological disorders. The main character of the film, John Nash, is a brilliant mathematician who suffers from symptoms of Schizophrenia. His symptoms include paranoid delusions, grandiosity, and disturbed perceptions. The disease disrupts his social relationships, his studies, and his work. The more stressful his life becomes the more his mind is not able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
This conflicts badly with his desire for self-identity. In Erikson’s theory of development, he is at the stage of ‘identity vs Role confusion’ (Tapia, 2012). That is why he is unable to resolve his own problems with others and instead results to hurting himself or hurting others. He is also in a confusion of sexual identity. The biggest contribution to this (lack of interest to girls and relationships) is his mother’s behavior, which by now he is rather aware of the situation. John is also dealing with self-guilt. The case in which he can not correct others and blames and punishes himself , this arises from his mother’s behavior. He may feels he should warn her to stop dressing and acting as she does but finds it difficult due to her being his only family and role model(Smith, & Elliott
He had even hired a housekeeper to take care of not only the house, but the baby as well. John also controlled almost everything in her life. In fact, the only thing he did not control was her journal writing, and even then she had to hide it from him since he did not approve of it. When he comes she says, "I must put this (the journal) away - he hates to have me write a word"(471). Part of John's problem 1s that he is a doctor. As a doctor, he control's his wife's health care, prescribing her medicines and her overall cure. As her husband, he is too emotionally involved to look at the case objectively, or if he had, he might have seen her mind going before it was too late. Not only that, the accepted "cure" at that particular time was ineffective and would only serve to make his wife worse (473). This "cure" was the product of a certain Dr. Weir Mitchell; a nerve specialist whose theory of a "rest cure" for mentally unstable patients was later found to be unsuccessful. In the story, the husband's ill-advised attempts to treat his wife's symptoms drive her insane by taking all responsibility from her and forcing isolation upon her as a part of her "cure."
John is an antagonist of the story. He feels he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, the reader soon realizes, this treatment is only worsening her mental state. He is never home with her; he always has patients to see in town, leaving her locked in this house; alone with her thoughts. He ensures that she gets rest and fresh air to get well. To him, it may seem as though he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, this seclusion she experiences causes serious damage to her mental state. Her husband has control over her that women
The movie, "A Beautiful Mind", John Nash, who is played by Russell Crowe, is a true story about a mathematician whose life is horrific because of his disease, schizophrenia. He was an egocentric man who studied Mathematics in Princeton University. During the whole time that he studied in Princeton, he was trying to come up with his own original idea. He felt that by only