A Beautiful Mind: Introduce, Discuss, and Analyze
The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the film "A Beautiful Mind" directed by Ron Howard. Specifically it will discuss an analysis of how the character deals with a mental health disorder. This film is based on the true story of John F. Nash, Jr. a mathematician and winner of the Nobel Prize who also was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Nash was hospitalized in several institutions involuntarily and voluntarily, and would often become rational enough to be released, and then relapse. His symptoms included bizarre behavior such his belief in an elaborate "spy network" where he believes he is solving Soviet codes for the U.S. government. He also began hearing things and seeing things that other people did not see or hear. In his paranoia, he believes the television is talking to him, and he creates a beautiful woman who appears often throughout his life but is not real. He behaves erratically enough that he is taken forcibly to a psychiatric facility, and the facility doctors are the ones that make his diagnosis. His illness affected his life in a variety of ways. In effect, he "lost" thirty years of his life to the illness, because he could not think clearly, and he would have bouts of luc
So, did he cope with his illness? Yes, he coped with it quite nicely in the end, but certainly not in the way that most medical professionals would approve of or even acknowledge. The film infers that Nash coped with his illness entirely on his own, and that he has such a strong mind that he can choose to ignore the hallucinations and dreams that haunt him. They even show him creating a woman that follows him through his life and seems incredibly real until the audience realizes that she is totally a fabrication and never ages. Not very many people could cope with schizophrenia the way Nash copes with it. Nash seems to be a very special case, and a very special man in very many ways. How does the character cope with the symptoms of his disease? Some people would say that he does not cope well at all, because he stops taking his medication, and literally cannot function normally for decades. However, he also seems (at least in the film) to be able to finally control his own mind and he goes into remission, which allows him to begin teaching again, and continue to solve some of the most difficult and perplexing mathematical problems. He literally tries to "ignore" the symptoms and the visions he sees, so he will not feed his paranoia. He might have been able to lead a more "normal" life if he had continued to take his medications, but he might have lost the ability to think and function as a brilliant mathematician. Many people would have taken the drugs to live more normally, but Nash's studies were everything to him, and so, he chose to try to live with the disease. He also lost many years of rational thought and think
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Approximate Word count = 1106
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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