Alcohol Roles in the Marriages of Americans - Case Study Example

American Drug Culture Introduction Temporal euphoric effects achieved by drug usage have been a common thing in diverse cultures all over the world. Different drugs abused to people’s mental states are being used on an increasing basis amidst youths in high schools and tertiary institutions. The reasons for using drugs with a high percentage of fatality are many and complicated. Efforts to identify why people are prone to abusing substances considered dangerous have led to majorly mental issues like physiological and psychological reasons among others. This essay in this paper tries to employ the concept of culture as used in social anthropology to theorize the major factors leading to it. These factors may include hereditary factors, social environment, culture, religious beliefs as well as personal mental situation such as stress, depression, hypertension, anxiety to mention just but a few. Family issues, and peer pressure have identified been identified as the fundamental causes of substance abuse in the elderly and youths respectively (Jennings, 1968, p.1) In my situation, I will utilize movies whose title is ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ and ‘Gone girl’ to identify and examine the effects of alcohol. In of; George Martha, Nick Honey. Other main characters in the movie gone girl to be at include; Nick and Army, Rand and Marybeth, Bill and Maureen. Alcohol roles in the marriages of George and Martha, Nick and Honey, Nick and Amy, Bill and Maureen, Rand and Marybeth Both George and Martha were coming from a University bash where he is an associate professor in the history department. From the first scene, we get the implication that theirs is not a blissful marriage since they’re rather bitter at each other. Martha updates her husband George that she had invited another couple for after party drinks. The other couple Nick and Honey arrive, and the party sets rolling. Before long the background changes to alcohol combined with agony and serious heartbreaks. George and Martha exploit most of the entire first act maliciously settling their scores. George abuses Martha on her age and alcoholism while at the same time tries to embarrass and outdo Nick, an associate professor who makes him insecure career wise. They also acts hint about George and Martha’s unknown son who none of them is comfortable talking about. On the other hand, Martha takes opportunity of the time to hurt her husband by giving her guests inner details of her husband’s non-performance. The climax of it all is when she exhibits George’s inability to be head of the history department despite his father in law being the university’s president. George gets so angry with this to an extent of shattering a liquor bottle threatening Honey, who runs out to vomit (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008, paras.1-2). In our case, too much alcohol ingested by both George and Martha misinterpret each other. In the long run resort to abuses as a means of expressing their power that, as a result, leads to George’s effort to try and show his denomination by breaking the liquor bottle. As a result of too much alcohol abuse domestic problems have cropped up in George and Martha’s marriage. It has led to domestic violence where we see George breaking the liquor bottle as a result of violence (Bennet, 1997, p.1). In the movie gone girl Nick and his wife Amy move into his hometown Missouri from New York. On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick uses cash obtained from a Military trust funding to finance his bar investment. This irritates Amy, who stage-manages her murder with evidence pointing to Nick so as to get him jailed. Amy’s marriage turns out to be difficult and complicated since she had poor fatherly parenting, and he again marries an egocentric man who has lived a deceitful life all along. Rand and Marybeth are wealthy and live a simple and quiet life until book sales are phased out and are forced to borrow money from Amy. Bill, Nick’s father, marries Maureen though he always felt women were stupid, nagging and inconsequential. However, he goes on further to marry Maureen. His stereotyping extends to all women since he used to refer to them as dumb and bitches. As a result of an abusive childhood from Bill, Nick is negatively impacted towards the egocentrism and believes in male domination. (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2014, paras. 1-4). Both couples can be seen to have physiological problems as a result of alcohol. In one way or the other alcohol plays a role by affecting them either directly or indirectly. On his part, George was demoted at the history department at the college just after the war. This we may in some way or another linked to his inefficiency as a result of alcoholism. Furthermore, individual failures can be attributed to alcoholism where Nick and Martha are as unfaithful in their relationships. This is when they decide to have sex with Nick as a way of getting even after George had embarrassed Nick and Honey on her hysterical pregnancy. Nick’s physiological problems seem to pile up when she fails to rise to the occasion and have sex with Martha. This makes Martha lower her respect for George and see him as useless. By not being able to fuck Martha, we feel that both George and Nick are bedroom failures and unable to satisfy on their spouses. We also feel that due to drinking Nick and Honey alongside George and Martha have physiological relationship problems. This included physical, mental, psychological as well as other ethics and morality problems (McDonald, Anna and Holmes, 2000, pp.3-16). In ‘gone girl’ movie, we realize that as a result of Nick’s poor and abusive childhood from bill’s parenting and ego, Nick develops with the belief of male superiority and dominion. He also lives a deceitful life so as to marry Amy and goes ahead to open a bar using Amy’s trust fund which is a sign of disrespect. On the other hand, Rand and Marybeth lead healthy love life which makes Amy grow up looking for respect honesty and love from Nick. When she fails in her quest to get the above, she resolves to revenge by stage-managing her murder and setting up Nick. Nick had to show how much he had changed to win her again at a cost of killing Desi, who had earlier helped her which is a clear picture of how women can be as violent as men. The issue of marriage and is brought out through a rocky and shaky relationship whereby you all have to face problems at one point in your life. While looking at Rand and Marybeth, who were noticeably good parents and had a decent life faced financial problems although not related to alcohol. We also realize that their problems were fewer in comparison to other marriages. We can thus say that alcohol is a major contributor to marriage problems (Rotskioff, 2002, pp. 80-85). The American society is like one that promotes the use of alcohol despite being learned and knowing the effects of alcohol in the case of Nick and George. These two tend to be professors, but their drinking and conduct is unprofessional. Modern fiction plays a significant role in the education and themes about alcohol in our culture. In the two movies gone girl and who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf, alcohol takes a central stage during plot. This goes along in promoting substance abuse and alcoholism in the viewers especially minors. This is because at that stage is when they are growing mentally and impacting a permanent change in their views to alcoholism (Bennet, 1997, p.5). Work Cited Jennings J. George.”American Culture and Drug Use” Journal of the American Science affiliation. 20 Dec. 1968.web.27 Nov. 2014 MacDonald, G., Zanna, M. P., & Holmes, J. G. “An experimental test of the role of alcohol in relationship conflict”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Web. 27. Nov.2014 Rotskoff, Lori. Love on the Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War Ii America. Chapel Hill, NC; London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Print. Shmoop Editorial Team."Bill Dunne in Gone Girl." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 28 Nov. 2014. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Summary."Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Weaver, Kathleen. "Alcohol and Romantic Relationships: A Good or Bad Mix?"- University at Buffalo. www.buffalo.edu/, 7 Dec. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2014. . Read More