Comparison of Proof (play) and A Beautiful Mind (movie) - Essay Example

The struggle in “A Beautiful Mind” The movie shows a man who has to pay a high price for the talent given to him by nature. A great mathematician who created his own valuable theory, he suffered from an awful and distressful illness, schizophrenia. Having refused from staying in hospital and taking pills, which blocked his mind, John Nash used his talent also to struggle with illness. He imagined that his illness is a math problem he had to resolve. His efforts were successful, he learned how to live with the illness and not to pay attention to hallucinations, which almost occupied his mind.

John Nash is a perfect example of a man who managed to win in the struggle with terrible illness and win the best prize he could win – The Noble Price in Economics (Goldsman 2). The struggle and the feministic aspect in “Proof” The play “Proof” also tells us about the cost of talent and the difficult way to recognition. We see two gifted people: a father and his daughter who has to take care about her sick father. Robert suffered from mental illness that was killing him and making his exhausted.

His mind, brilliant in the past, could not deal with mathematics any more. Catherine, who was taking care of his father hoped that his brilliant mind is not spoiled by the illness greatly. She cried when found out that the work of Robert couldn’t be used anyhow. After the Robert’s death, a young man Hal, who also was a mathematician, managed to find among the useless work of Robert a brilliant “proof”. The work was outstanding, but Catherine knew that it was her who wrote it. She told her sister and Hal, who was already her beloved, about that (Auburn 21).

However, it appeared to be very difficult for her to prove her authorship. If to compare her struggle with the struggle of John Nash, it was more difficult just because she happened to be a woman (Alexanderson). John had to struggle with the illness and prove that he still could work as a lecture, while Catherine first needed to prove that she was a gifted mathematician. Nobody believed her, her sister considered hr to be a little girl who couldn’t do anything like that and the motives of her beloved Hal were very close to envy.

It seems that he simply did not want to believe that his beloved woman was also gifted as she could become his competitor, notwithstanding that finally he started recognizing her talent. Moreover, at the beginning Catherine’s arguments were explained by the inherited mental illness (Kirszner and Stephen 25). Conclusion Both the play “Proof” and the movie “A Beautiful Mind” tell us about the mathematicians with mental illness who have to struggle with the disease and prove their value as mathematicians at the same time.

However, the struggles have different character because in “A Beautiful Mind” the mathematician is a man and in the play “Proof” it is a woman. This main difference causes many other differences as we can see one more time that it is much more difficult for a woman to prove her value in the