Film This Boy's Life - Movie Review Example

Thesis This film vividly portrays family problems and troubles, psychological pressure and emotional distress caused by complicated family relation and misunderstanding. The main problem discussed in the film is emotional abuse and misunderstanding which cause psychological and emotional sufferings to Caroline and Toby. This life story is devoted to emotional abuse faced by the author, Tobias Wolff, during his childhood. He vividly depicts hardship and emotional burden experienced by the teenager.

This story is very impressive, because it reflects personal past of the author, physiological stress and cruelty of his stepfather and his children. Different parents have different ideas as to the proper way to bring up children, or as to what counts as adequate care for them, but this story unveils hash realities of childhood and family violence faced by some children. Dwight Hansen explains to Caroline that he tries to change rebellious nature of Toby and makes him a better person. But his methods and behavior unveil that he does not love Toby seeing him as the object of abuse.

Physical abuse of the child is closely connected with emotional abuse and involved physical punishment and family violence. Toby describes that his stepfather often finds any excuse to punish him while favoring the other children. Another family trouble is dominant of the father and a husband within the family. Dwight Hansen plays a dominant position in the family exercised through aggression and cruelty. From sociological point of view, this problem is caused by different gender roles and inequality within the institution of marriage.

These gender variables shape the values and hence the behavior of the main characters and show that specific gender roles determine the way of living and norms of several generations of people. During the 1950s, gender roles have not undergone metamorphoses. They have followed the economic, social, and political trends of the country's history. Unfortunately, this resulted in distraction and harassment of children, primarily Toby. The film vividly portrays that father's dominance and lack of understanding ruins family happiness and warm relations.

Toby describes that there is no doubt that physical injuries tend to be more evident, and their effects more public then emotional sufferings. Stress and mental disorders can be seen as one of the most important family problems which is difficult to identify, but which have a great impact on the family and family relations. From the sociological point of view, people are faced with stress at work and at home. Stress is a social problem but it arises from an imbalance between the demands made upon individuals and their capacity to cope with such demands, family relations and economic conditions of the family.

The mental well-being of family members is more difficult to define or protect. For a long time, Caroline does to recognize problems and grievances faced by her son, Toby. In his Boy's Life', stress arises from personal factors and emotional abuse It is possible to say that rebellion nature of Toby is a form of disobedience against abuse or psychological conflict between parents and children. Generation gap supports this situation and resulted in negative consequences such as rebellion and escape.

Another problem described in the film is a secondary role of women and mothers within the instit