An Analysis of the Character John Nash in the Movie A Beautiful Mind

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Introduction

Various theories have been fronted by psychological professionals to explain the reasons why individuals respond to changes in their lives in a particular way. Elizabeth Hutchinson has particularly provided extensive studies on different theoretical perspectives that can be used to analyze an individual’s situation in her book titled, “Dimensions of Human Behavior: Person and Environment.”

This essay is based on a study carried out on the character John Nash from the film A Beautiful Mind. Hutchinson’s theoretical perspectives will serve as guides in the analysis assisted by the work of various other writers.

Five theoretical perspectives have been used to analyze Nash’s situation in relation to the society in which he lives. These five theories are part of the eight perspectives which Elizabeth Hutchinson has explained in detail in her book Dimensions of Human Behavior (2008).

Synopsis of the movie A Beautiful Mind

John Nash (Russell Crowe) is awarded the prestigious Carnegie prize for mathematics and joins Princeton University. Initially, he is supposed to have a room to himself but he is surprised to find that he has a roommate by the name Charles. Charles is a literature student and the two soon become friends. Other than Charles, members of Nash’s social circle at Princeton are either Mathematics or Science graduate students, amongst them his greatest rival in class, Martin Hansen.

For his thesis paper, Nash works on a theory in mathematical economics; a concept that is inspired by an unsuccessful attempt to chat up a woman at a bar. He finally graduates and accepts an offer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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(MIT). While working as a Mathematics lecturer at MIT five years down the line, he falls in love with Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly), one of his students, and they eventually get married. Later, Nash returns to Princeton where he meets Charles, his former roommate and Charles’ niece, Marcee.

He also meets William Parcher (Ed Harris), a mysterious agent who invites him to the United States Defense Department located at the Pentagon for an assignment. He (Nash) is expected to crack a very complex encryption code to an enemy’s telecommunication network. His fellow hackers are amazed and at the same time impressed by how easily he cracks the code.

After this incredible success, Nash is assigned a new task to look for patterns in various publications; information which would be used to stop an invasion plan by the Soviet. He is instructed to deliver the report of his findings to a particular mailbox. The

Russians become aware of his involvement and hunt him down with the aim of killing him. The danger he finds himself in makes him paranoid and he starts making inconsistent decisions.

While giving a lecture at Harvard University, he notices a group of people watching him and attempts to flee. His pursuers soon catch up with him and after putting him under sedatives, they send him to a psychiatric hospital. His paranoia causes him to perceive the attendants at the facility as Soviet kidnappers on a mission to obtain unlisted information from him.

Alicia, goes to the mailbox and recovers the documents that Nash had deposited months earlier and uses them to confront him. It is then that he is convinced that he has been hallucinating. He discovers that the meetings with Marcee, Charles’ niece as well as the encounters with Parcher have all been

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figments of his imagination. He receives insulin shock therapy and is released from the facility on condition that he promises to take antipsychotic medication.

Unfortunately, the drugs that he is prescribed to negatively affect his intellectual capacity and the frustration that ensues puts a strain on his marriage. He finally gets off the medication and relapses into psychosis. The situation is so bad that he almost drowns his son while bathing him. His wife takes the child and attempts to run away for fear of losing their lives but he blocks the car’s path.

It suddenly occurs to him that Marcee never grows old since the first time he met her and he once again accepts that he has been hallucinating. He finally resigns to the fact that he has to live on medication and even gets a job at Princeton courtesy of his old-time academic rival, Martin Hansen who happens to be the head of the institution.

Eventually, he is allowed to teach again and wins several accolades including a Nobel Prize in economics for his work in Mathematics.

Character analysis

The analysis character John Nash can be approached from perspectives which include psychological, social and spiritual (Hutchinson, 2008: Carter, & McGoldrick, 2004).

Psychologically, Nash is initially a well balanced individual who is able to make informed decisions on his own. However as the film continues, he starts becoming unstable as the film proceeds with paranoia taking the best of him. Socially, Nash is very awkward in the sense that he does not know how to relate with women or even men who are not as bright as him. This aspect limits his life by confining his relations to

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the very few people that can understand him. Spiritually, Nash can be described as an earthly person since from the film he is not linked to a particular religion. Environmental factors contribute to the development of a character

Theoretical perspectives

Theoretical perspectives are ideas that are suggested for analysis of a situation based on the surrounding factors (Carter, & McGodrick, 2004). These theories are descriptions of the various features surrounding an individual that make him respond to situation in a particular way.

For instance the most common aspects of society that play into the development of an individual include personal, family, community and environmental attributes (Greene, 2002).

Review of theoretical perspectives described by Hutchinson.

In her book, Dimensions of Human behavior, Hutchinson explains eight factors which determine an individual’s character. These are briefly summarized below:

Systems Perspective- This theory fronts the idea that in society all aspects that surround human beings are interconnected

Conflicts Perspective-This is a view that in society there has to be inequalities for relations to the systems to run effectively.

Social Behavioral Perspective- This is a concept that links the development of human behavior to observation of certain aspects of society.

Developmental Perspective-Studies human development as a series of changes happening at various points in their lives.

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Humanistic perspective- This theory is based on the fact that human beings are able to evolve and reinvent themselves. It mainly helps to explain why changes happen in life.

Rational choice perspective- This perspective views human beings as individuals with the ability to make defendable choices.

Social Constructionist perspective- This theory is an analysis of the diversity of the life basing on the premise that what happens today is not necessarily what will happen tomorrow.

Psychodynamic perspective- This is also an analysis of the constant changes that occur in human life.

Of these eight perspectives, five were selected to analyze the character of John Nash, picked from the film A Beautiful Mind. These five are the systems, conflict, developmental, social behavioral and the humanistic perspectives.

Systems perspective

This theory analyses society by the functions that are carried out by its various elements. These functions are mainly cultures, traditions and institutions that work together resulting in the proper functioning of the whole system.

The most common analogy used to support this theory is organicism whereby society is viewed as a living creature whose various parts have to be coordinated for proper functioning of the whole (Bertalanffy, 1968). Various premises have been fronted to support this theory; these are:

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Society comprises independent parts whose functions are however interrelated.
Each part of society has certain standards and fixed roles.
The different parts of society can at no time be equal; some are of more significance than others (Churchman, 1968).
The systems in society have boundaries which give them individual uniqueness.
Change taking place in society is gradual and incremental.

The film A Beautiful Mind is full of networks which effectively make the society function naturally. When Nash reports to Princeton College, he is assigned a roommate, Charles with whom he strikes a close friendship. Their association contributes to the well-being of each one of them.

Charles serves as the only link that Nash has with the social world while Nash’s awkwardness in interacting with people helps Charles have a sense of dominance which balances Nash’s superiority in academics. The university administration has a well defined relationship with the students. It however has more power over the students and doesn’t fail to exercise this authority.

The most important network in the entire film starts when Nash meets and marries Alicia. Together with their child, they make a small social unit with everybody playing a role aimed at looking after the welfare of the other members of the family. As a husband and father Nash’s actions bear a direct impact on his family.

When he starts having paranoid schizophrenic attacks, he is unable to function properly in both at work and at the home causing a lot of worry to his wife. At some point he almost drowns his infant son and therefore fails to

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provide the sense of security that he is expected to deliver as a father. Alicia as well has to deal with changes occurring in her life. Aside from taking care of their son, she also has to watch over her husband and keep him from hurting himself.

She gets him admitted at a psychiatric hospital and also goes out of her way to find the letter that he had delivered to a mailbox and uses it to bring him to reality. Their little family has boundaries which keep other people from completely interfering with its internal affairs.

Outsiders step in to offer a hand only when invited. For instance, Nash is picked up and taken to the psychiatric hospital only when Alicia calls and asks for assistance.

Conflict perspectives

This perspective is based on the fact that there are inequalities in society which are either political or socio-economic in nature (Lenski, 1966). It is set on the following five premises:

People, when acting either as individuals or in groups, try to impose their interests on others.
Power and authority are not equally divided among social groups. There are some groups which are dominant over others (Odum, 1994).
Order in society is achieved by the dominant groups manipulating the smaller groups.
If there is no open conflict in a society, then one group is being exploited.
Change in society is brought about by conflict whereby lengthy phases of stability are interrupted by periods of change.

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Conflict presents itself in the film in a number of incidents. When Nash reports to Princeton, he expects to be given a single room. The college however allocates him a shared room and since there is nothing much he can do to change the situation, he accepts things as they are.

The destabilization of Nash’s mental functioning results in conflict within his family. His mental problems cause him to have little or no power over his wife. Alicia on her part gets some measure of power in the sense that she can call

the psychiatric hospital and get them to handle her husband’s condition. She however has no control over his paranoia when he stops taking medication and has to depend on him to figure out things for himself.

When Nash finally agrees to live on medication, he resigns to the fact that he has no power over his mental forces. This decision however serves him well by giving him back his role as breadwinner. He can now have some authority over his wife and son.

However, when he goes looking for a job, his sense of power is dominated by more powerful forces existing in the job market. He has to depend on old acquaintances to get a job. He therefore has to operate under the terms and conditions of these powerful characters.

Developmental perspective

The focal point of this perspective is how human character is modified and remains the same in certain parts of the life cycle. The development of humans is regarded as a multifaceted interaction of psychological, biological and social progressions which happen in well distinguished stages of life (Long, 2001). With each

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new stage, changes are brought about in the social roles of individuals as well as their status. This perspective is based on the five premises listed below:

Human growth takes place in various phases that are dependent on the age of the individual.
Life stages are qualitatively distinct from each other.
Developmental stages in life happen chronologically with each stage structuring on earlier stages.
Transition from one stage in life to another demands that changes occur in roles played by an individual as well as in the status of the person.
Human development depends on the interaction of social, biological and psychosomatic factors.

The Nash family can be studied in terms of the developmental obligations that each member has to take care of. Nash develops paranoid schizophrenia and has to constantly battle hallucinations.

He finally realizes that he cannot make it without the use of medication. As much as the drugs help him function normally, they have the negative side effect of causing him to lose his intellectual capabilities.

This is a very frustrating development since he is used to always being the smartest. With a family to take care of, Nash has to accept whatever job he can get regardless of how lowly it is compared to his previous occupation.

Alicia on her part has to grow into the role of mother to her child and caregiver to her husband. She becomes the voice of reason and has to exercise dominion over her husband in order to keep the family intact. This new roles reduce her span of operation

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To within the house and her primary interactions are her husband and son; her social network is killed.

Social behavioral perspective

The social behavioral perspective works under the principle that human beings acquire character traits by their interaction with the environment (Layton, 1997). The following five premises help support this theory.

Human behavior is acquired when people interact with each other and with their environment (Schmuel, Horst, 1985).
Any learned behavior can be modified.
Human character is acquired through the corroboration of personal expectations and consequence.
All problems that individuals face can be expressed as objectionable behavior.
Similar learning processes happening in separate environments will result in marked differences in human character.

From the film, there are various things that may have happened earlier in Nash’s life that cause him to suffer mental destabilization. Perhaps he lost a sister called Marcee at childhood who he now sees as Charles’ niece. Marcee could also be a child from a past relationship that we have not been told about.

In other words, there are endless possibilities as to who Marcee could be. His interaction with Parcher and assignment to top secret jobs could have been unfulfilled childhood dreams. Being a socially retarded individual there is also a possibility that Nash could not handle the

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roles he was assigned when he got married since they required that he had other people to think of before making certain decisions. This is unlike in his single days when everything was aimed at developing his personal intellect.

Alicia fits into her roles perfectly. She sticks to her responsibility as mother and at no time considers terminating her marriage even when the conditions seem unfavorable. Her determination could have been influenced by past experiences.

She could have been raised by a single mother and had understood the challenges that children in such homes faced. There is also a chance that her father may have been incapacitated at one time and her mother nursed him to stability and therefore by extension she (Alicia) is putting into practice something she had learned earlier in life.

Humanistic perspective

This perspective strives to emphasize the freedom of individuals to act in certain ways as well as the pursuit of significance (Berger, 1963). The humanistic perspective is founded on the following ideas:

Each person is uniquely different and has distinctive values.
Everybody is personally responsible for choices that he/she makes within the thresholds of freedom.
Human beings have the ability to revolutionize themselves.
Character is motivated by an aspiration for growth and by a yearning to relate with other individuals.
Individuals make psychological ultimatums on each other and efforts to meet such demands end up in angst.

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In some way, John Nash shows some level of perseverance over the challenges that come with mental instability. He has had to compromise trading his superior intellectual capabilities for proper functioning within the society. The conditions he finds himself in may not give him much of an option but he is an adult capable of making choices and sometimes rethinks these choices.

This is shown when he stops taking medication on account of the negative effects it has on his brain. As an analyst however, these are just presumptions and there is a desire to meet Nash and hear his side of the story as well as get to know how he perceives his current situation.

Alicia deserves a lot of admiration for her commitment towards her husband and child. She makes the decision to stay in the marriage and help work things out even when the chances of success appear odd. However, it is assumed that she makes choices consciously and it is only until someone gets to interview her that her opinions regarding her situation can be revealed.

Reasons for selecting the perspectives above

The above five perspectives were chosen because of their effectiveness to comprehensively analyze real life situations. Each perspective has its strengths and limitations and therefore cannot be used individually if a proper analysis is to be carried out.

The systems perspective was chosen because of its ability to illustrate the importance of networks within a small group of individuals as well as link this small group to the wider society. This perspective however has the limitation of appearing too abstract in the sense that it does not only define human interactions but also includes

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the influence of other societal aspects such as the economy on human beings. Sociology is a field of study that generally emphasizes the notion of change. As a sociological theory therefore, the systems perspective appears too conservative by insisting on the aspect of maintenance of stability within the system.

The conflict perspective was chosen because within any society there has to be variances. Its ability to illustrate how balance is maintained in society by individuals trying to exercise dominion over others clearly helps understand certain behavioral characteristics. It also has the weakness of being too abstract by not clearly focusing on human relations with each other.

The developmental perspective was selected because it considers the fact that human beings are always undergoing changes in their lives. These changes require people to adapt to new ways of doing things whether they like it or not.

The social behavioral perspective was used because of its relevance in analyzing learned human behavior. However, its major weakness is that it fails to factor in the innate characteristics of individuals in its insistence that all behavior is learned from experience.

Finally, the humanistic perspective was included in the analysis because the study character was a fully grown man capable of making independent decisions. This perspective’s major limitation is the fact that it does not consider factors that may affect an individual’s capacity to make informed choices such as mental illness.

Challenges

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The major challenge in analyzing this case was the fact that most of the events happening in the film are hallucinations. Actions or relations happening in these parts could not be used in the analysis and they all had to be categorized under paranoia. The few events that were happening outside Nash’s brain had to form the basis of study and this posed a slight challenge in the scrutiny.

Another challenge came in the form of choosing which perspectives to use in the essay because all eight perspectives could effectively explain some events taking place in the life of John Nash. This was however resolved by selecting perspectives that had fewer and less critical limitations.

Reference List

Berger, P.L. (1963). Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. New York: Anchor press/Doubleday.

Bertalanffy, L.V. (1968). Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory. Worchester: Clark University Press.

Carter, B. & McGoldrick, M. (2004). The Expanded Family Life Cycle: Individual, Family, and Social Perspectives. (3^rd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Churchman, C.W. (1968). The systems approach. New York: Laurel.

Greene, R.R. (2002). Resiliency: An integrated approach to policy practice and research. Washington D.C: NASW Press.

Hutchingson, E.D. (2008) Dimensions of Human Behavior. (3^rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Layton, R. (1997). An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lenski, G. E. (1966). Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. Ryerson. Canada: McGraw-Hill.

Long, N. (2001). Development sociology: Actor perspectives. New York: Routledge.

Odum, H. (1994). Ecological and General Systems: An introduction to systems ecology. Colorado: Colorado University Press.

Schmuel, N.E., & Horst, J.H. (1985). Perspectives on Sociological Theory: Micro- sociological theory. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

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