Communication in Ordinary People - Movie Review Example

Communication in Ordinary People Abstract The role of family relationships and the patterns of communication are often the root cause for mental and emotional disease conditions. The pragmatic approach takes into account the paradoxes between the overt, verbal communication and the interpretation by the listener of the language that is used, as a reflection of the true intentions of the speaker which may be different from the actual verbal message being conveyed. This process of meta communication that goes on at a different level form the outward conventional one is the focus of efforts by researchers and psychotherapists in identifying the true causes of family problems, which are rooted in mis-communication. The film “Ordinary People” provides ample examples of the problems that can be generated through meta communication and the pragmatic paradoxes that arise therein. Communication in the film “Ordinary people” Introduction: The theory of Communication based upon a Pragmatics approach, as developed by Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson is based upon the understanding of mental and psychological disturbances arising as a result of the pattern of family communication and the dynamics of relationships existing within the family structure. The salient features of their theory incorporate the element of paradoxes between verbal and non verbal cues, and resultant feedback which forms the crux of an individual’s conduct – separate and distinct from what he/she may be capable of on an individual basis. The film “Ordinary People” directed by Robert Redford based on the book by Judith Guest is a study of the complex relationships and underlying conflicts that govern the family communications in the home of the Jarretts who live in suburban Chicago. Outwardly, they appear to be the model WASP family, but there is a complex undercurrent of emotion and family upheaval that belies the still waters on the surface, an unspoken communication that is escalating the level of conflict within the family as the family tries to cope with the death of the elder son of the family. This film presents a typical example of the conflicts arising out of the paradoxes and feedbacks highlighted by Watzlawick et al through their Pragmatic approach to communications. There is a great deal of disparity between what is being said in the family and what is actually meant to be said. In the aftermath of a traumatic situation, this brings out underlying conflicts and tensions due to the trauma created by the death of one member of the family, which makes them all view each other in a completely different light. This film demonstrates how a family may often be existing and communicating quite differently at the conventional level through their language yet, may in fact may be intending something quite different at the pragmatic level. This tension and paradox that is created is stretched until it reaches a point where adjustments have to be made that destroy the stability of the family so that the members of the family can genuinely communicate with each other. Pragmatics in human communications: Bateson (1951) reframed psychotherapy based on a horizontal approach that examined an individual’s relationships with those around him rather than focusing on Freud’s intensive vertical approach that stressed the process going on within the individual. This horizontal approach was directed towards the study of informational deficiencies, miscommunication and faulty communication signals and faulty processing (Bateson, 1951 p 17). In specific relation to schizophrenia and mental problems, Bateson placed the onus on distorted communications between mother and child: “…in the psychology of real communications [the discontinuity between a class and its members] is continually and inevitably breached, and that a priori we must expect a pathology to occur in the human organism when certain formal patterns of the breaching occur in the communication between mother and child. (Bateson, 1972, pp 202-203) In a nuclear family in particular, the relationship between the mother and children is even more intense because the mother is the centre of the familial unit at the home and any disruption or abnormality, or any miscommunication can have the most profound effect. This is found to be particularly true in the case of the relationship between the second son of the Jarret family – Conrad and the mother, Beth, which is in effect the cause of the boy’s attempt to commit suicide after the death of his elder brother Buck, who was his mother’s personal favorite among her two sons. Bateson also pointed to the importance of the communicational structure of the entire family which is based upon the feedback loop and imparts the necessary stability to the family unit. This is the basis upon which Watzlawick et al (1967) derive their theory of pragmatic communications, wherein they emphasize the vital role of the nature of communications that exist within the family hierarchy. In their book, they quote Bateson’s proposition ; “We have to consider, not only A's reactions to B's behavior, but we must go on to consider how these affect B's later behavior and the effect of this on A.” (Watzlawick et al, 1967, p 153). Therefore, in a feedback loop that characterizes the family unit, the stability of the family system is maintained through the resonating action of all the family members rather than specifically through discrete aspects of individual action or behavior. The initiative of one family member must be counterbalanced by the others in a complex system of designated responses and non verbal cues that determine how the family stability will be determined through the mode of communication. In the film “Ordinary People” the complex interactions that take place along established patterns of communication are thrown into disorder when the placid, above average affluent family living in a posh neighborhood in suburban Chicago is thrown out of kilter by the death of the elder son, disturbing the cozy communication model of feedback and action-reaction that has been established within the family. The father Calvin is a tax attorney while Beth the mother plays golf and organizes her household with clock like precision, so that everything is neat and tidy – at least on the outside. But the untimely death of the elder son threatens this stability that has been established as each member of the family tries to cope with the tragedy in their own way. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the familial balance that has been established is disturbed, set patterns are disrupted and deeply buried feelings are released, proving that “recently achieved economic and social privilege is no defense against emotional chaos. Privilege is a plywood treehouse in a hurricane.” (Canby, 1980). Bateson highlighted the concept of pathogenic breaches in the family which he referred to as “double binds”, a concept that was later refined by Watzlawick et al. The double bind essentially refers to a situation where a vital relationship exists and there is confusion generated in this relationship through the conflict between the verbal communication pattern and the non verbal communication which may be conveying the opposite message. (Ruesch and Bateson, 1951, p 217). When an individual loses the ability to correctly interpret the messages of others or relay his own accurately, this produces negative feelings and a tendency to completely destroy the normal means of communication. Watzlawick et al build on this premise that distorted communication is the cause of pathologies and extend the double bind theory into one of pragmatic paradoxes. The focus of their approach is on meta communication, the complex tricks and traps that are set up within human relationships by the very nature of human communications and the existing language structures. The authors draw reference to behavior that may be perceived to be strange to some while there may exist a perfectly reasonable explanation for the behavior as a manifestation resulting from an unseen cause and therefore memory is “a concept that the observer invokes to fill the gap caused when part of the system is unobservable.” (Watzlawick et al, 1967, p 26). In the film “Ordinary People” memory is very important, because the communication between the various family members is shaped by their attempt to cope with the memory of the traumatic event in their lives- the death of a family member. The pragmatics approach is concerned with the sentences that are spoken and a distinction is made between the semantic meaning of the sentence and the meaning the speaker wishes to convey through the spoken sentence.(Thomas 1995). Thus, the focus is actually the meta communication that is actually taking place, irrespective of the platitudes that are mouthed or the conventional niceties that are spoken. The film brings out emotions and feelings that are not conventionally acceptable, such as the fact that a mother preferred her elder son; as well as the fact that the younger son felt driven to suicide because he realized that his mother would have preferred it if he had died. According to Watzlawick et al (1967), feedback will determine the nature of communications depending upon whether it is negative or positive - the former leads to the “loss of stability or change” while the former characterizes “homeostatis (steady state)” (page 31). In the film “Ordinary people”, it is the feedback from the trauma and pain of Buck’s death which is the catalyst that brings about change in the family communication and relationships. The marriage between Beth and Calvin breaks down ultimately because of the differences in the way they react to the trauma of their son’s death and their attitude towards their remaining son, Conrad. In the tense scenes that play out in the film, there is a paradox in communications established between the husband and wife through maintaining an outward semblance of normality while there is an inner underlying conflict between them. “Disagreements about how to punctuate the sequence of events is at the root of countless relationship struggles.” (Watzlawick et al, 1967, p 56) . The language that is spoken between them reflects an entirely different meaning to that which is actually meant. For example, when Beth insists that they should go on holiday, she talks eagerly about the fun that they will have visiting places, while Calvin expresses his preference for the family to stay at home, adding that their previous vacation in Europe was not very successful. Outwardly, the communication is about the choice of place to holiday, whether it is to be in Europe or elsewhere as opposed to spending the holiday at home. But the pragmatic communication that is taking place is entirely different. Through expressing his desire to stay at home, Calvin is actually communicating his desire to remain at home and talk about the trauma and get out their feelings. He is worried about his son Conrad and feels that they need to talk to each other as a family in order to heal the pain of their loss. This is also why he is the one who insists that Conrad should see a psychiatrist, so that he is able to vent his feelings. Beth on the contrary is not anxious to talk about the trauma of their loss. They have never communicated openly about their feelings and Beth especially has never cared deeply about her younger son or spent time talking to him about his problems. Therefore the message that she is communicating through her desire to go away on holiday and spend the time in a mad whirl of activity is the desire to escape the talking about the trauma. She wants to just bypass it altogether and just forget about it and she is impatient with both her husband and her son for their inability to get over it. Another indication of the underlying conflict that lies between the couple because of Conrad is revealed during their holiday in Houston, when Beth displays her customary reluctance to talk about her son. Her very reluctance to talk about him is in fact the pragmatic expression of her coldness towards her son and her lack of affection for him, which cannot be expressed because it goes against the conventional norms of society. But when her brother Ward brings up the subject of Conrad and Calvin actually shares with him the fact that Conrad is seeing a psychologist, Beth bursts out that Calvin is too concerned about Conrad and is “giving in to him”. This is the pragmatic expression of her own inner reluctance to face up to the fact that she may be the person to blame for her son’s problems. By accusing her husband of giving in to Conrad, she is actually confronting him and demanding to know whether he loved Conrad or her more. This underlying conflict soon bursts into the open, as Calvin begins to understand the pragmatic communication that is going on between him and his wife. One night, he comes back to find his son lying on the couch and his wife upstairs in bed, without a care in the world about her son. He cannot help wondering how she has gone to bed without even questioning why her son is lying on the couch. When he finally tells her “I don’t know if I love you anymore” he is actually conveying the message that he is aware of how cold she has become towards her son. He realizes that she possesses a lack of feeling which would never have become evident if the accident had not occurred. Calvin is a person who worries a great deal about his son Conrad and the psychological trauma that he may still be going through after his suicide attempt immediately following Buck’s death. He is very concerned about his son and protective about him. But Beth on the other hand feels differently. Buck has always been her favorite and she wants to move away from the pain and trauma of Buck’s death and get on with their lives, hanging on to normalcy as if she’s gripping a cliff and clawing her way out of the after math of the trauma with grim determination. Her reaction to the underlying conflicts seething below the surface is; “”we’d have been all right if there hadn’t been any mess” (Canby 1980). But the “mess” did occur and in the aftermath, as Calvin observes his wife and realizes more and more, how little she is concerned about her son and the problems he is going through, he realizes that he is no longer sure if his wife is the same women he married and whether he ever knew her before marrying her. As Jay Haley points out, “When a man and a woman decide their association should be legalized with a marriage ceremony, they pose themselves a problem that will continue throughout the marriage: now that they are married, are they staying together because they wish to or because they must?” (Haley 119). He realizes that there is a rift between them and that they have not been communicating effectively for a long time because of his wife’s reluctance to deal with the trauma and her preference to just work her way around it. In this instance, she is the dominant partner in the relationship who has shaped the family behavior in the aftermath of the tragedy, but as Watzlawick et al point out, the stability of the family can be maintained only if the other members of the family respond appropriately to the initiative put forth by one member. But both Calvin and his son Conrad perceive the tragedy differently and are eager to communicate in this matter, therefore, they do not react to counterbalance Beth’s move to maintain the stability through her negative emotions. Rather they advocate a positive approach to the problem by dealing with their feelings, which both of them are not being allowed to do on account of Beth’s oppressive presence. This is a typical balance of the communication structure in a family setting, where the actions and communication of one member invariably must be offset or accepted by the others in order to maintain the family structure and balance. When the applecart is upset, Calvin realizes that he is being asked to make a choice between his son and his wife. Unlike his wife, he is unable to turn away from the pain and stress his son is suffering and wants to see him healed and a whole human being. But this necessitates a withdrawal from Beth because her pragmatic communication has already conveyed to him the message that she is not prepared to work in that direction because she cannot face up to the possibility that she may be blamed for her son’s problems, which she knows to be true. The concept of the “double bind” and “pragmatic paradoxes” is especially evident in the relationship between Conrad and Beth. According to Watzlawick et al, a person in a “double bind” has to do something but is prevented from doing it. Two people must be involved in an intense relationship and the message one is conveying to another must be such that it asserts something, then asserts something about that assertion which is contradictory to the original assertion (Watzlawick et al, 1967, p 212). Conrad longs to express his love for his mother, and when he finally realizes that the source of his problems was that he was trying to be like his brother and make up for the loss of his brother in order to secure his mother’s non existent love, he is able to articulate it to his psychiatrist; “Why can’t she love me?” From Conrad’s point of view, if there had been no accident, his underlying perception that his mother loved Buck more, would never have became apparent. The fact that he resorts to a suicide attempt after his brother’s accident is a reflection of how deeply the boy blames himself for his brother’s death and his regret that he had been the brother who had survived, instead of Buck whom his mother loved. Outwardly, this was an ideal family before the accident. No one would have veer guessed that Beth, the ideal mother was actually a cold woman who had favored her elder son and had only rated her younger son as second best. Yet this is the pragmatic communication that has been conveyed to Conrad, through his mother reaction’s to her elder son’s death and her conduct after it. The accident however throws up the perception of the younger brother about the reality of his mother’s lack of feeling for him as compared to Buck. Two systems of communications were in existence – the outward one where everything was normal and hunky dory and the underlying one, where the mother resented her younger son for being the one to survive the accident. There are several scenes in the film that demonstrate this tendency to try and maintain the outward semblance of normalcy while the underlying subtext conveys an entirely different message. One particularly poignant scene occurs where Conrad is attempting to communicate with his mother and she pointedly turns her back on him as she takes a call from a friend, explicitly conveying a message of rejection which conflicts with the conventional communications between mother and son where there is love and acceptance. (Carston 2002) The relationship between the mother and the son also demonstrates the pragmatic paradoxes that Watzlawick et al speak of in their book. There is a scene that takes place over Christmas, when Calvin, Conrad and his grandfather are standing together with Beth while his grandmother is trying to take a picture. Outwardly the mother is smiling and normal, but she keeps coaxing her mother to hand the camera to her so that she can take the picture. What she’s saying appears completely normal and in accord with the family closeness that prevails at the gathering, but there is an underlying message of rejection that she is actually conveying, thereby demonstrating the divergence between the actual meaning of what she’s saying outwardly and what she’s actually trying to convey through her request to take the photograph. (Austin, 1962). Her insistence through her speech on taking the photograph is an expression of the sublingual message of her desire to be out of the photograph. The underlying message that she is communicating to her son is that she does not even want to be in a photograph with him, so that the boy is unable to bear it any more and bursts out, “Give her the goddamn camera!” If this simple utterance is comprehended merely in its semantic sense or in the literal meaning of the words that are being used it means that the boy wants his mother to take the photograph, but on the pragmatic level, the meaning of the words go much deeper because the message that Conrad is actually trying to convey is – “Can’t you see that she doesn’t love me and doesn’t want to be with me? Let her go.” Therefore there is a clear distinction between the informative intent of the sentence and the communicative intent of the same sentence, which spells the difference between ordinary interpretation of language vis a vis pragmatic interpretation (Sperber and Wilson, 1986; Leech 1983). Outwardly the mother purportedly loves both her sons. She tells her husband that of course, she loves Conrad and is concerned about him but they need to move on with their lives. But the outward show of normalcy has been belied by the non verbal cues that she has been giving her younger son all his life, expressing the conflict between her purported outward love versus her inner lack of caring. The outward verbal communication is quite different from the actual inward communication that is taking place. (Blakemore 1990). When Conrad first meets the psychiatrist, these non verbal messages from his mother that are the source of his inner pain, are so deeply buried that he is unable to speak of them. He is forced to do so only when the charismatic psychiatrist insists, “No one liners”. One liners are Conrad’s standard method of communication – he has learnt to communicate in this manner with his mother and his family. His mother has little time for him and his problems so he has learnt to be brief and non committal when communicating with his family. The family is very polite and conventional on the outside, but the external politeness hides a multitude of deep inner feelings and imbalances in relationships. External politeness is therefore often deceptive because the meaning that is being conveyed through the polite spoken word may not be what the speaker actually wants to convey. (Brown and Levinson, 1978). When Conrad tells the psychiatrist about his suicide attempt, he speaks of the carpet being spoilt and the fact that his mother had to re-grout the floor to remove the blood stains – a painful indication of the knowledge the boy possesses about what is really important to his mother. Conrad is well aware that despite the outward, conventional communication modes whereby a mother loves her children, there is a paradox and the truth of his mother’s feelings for him is that they are practically non existent. She is more worried about maintaining the outward charade of the perfect family and does not want to face up to anything “messy” which involves emotion. Thus Conrad has learnt to suppress the emotions, but he is well aware of the underlying feelings of his mother and the fact that she wished he had been the one who had died instead of Buck. His suicide attempt qualifies as definitely “messy” and Conrad is well aware of this. The inability to communicate is what impels the boy to try and escape from the sense of guilt and loneliness he feels by committing suicide in an attempt to satisfy his mother at some obscure meta level. Because of his mother’s tendency to refuse to communicate openly about deep feelings and emotions, both he and his father are denied the opportunity to come to terms with their grief. Since Conrad is unable to communicate with his father initially, he feels driven to try and commit suicide. As he talks to his parents about his swimming lessons and his dismal performance the previous year at his studies, he is actually conveying the message that he wants to know if they still care for him. The fact that he gives up his swimming lessons could be understood as a literal giving up of lessons, but it actually is a meta communication of the pain and trauma that is inherent in Conrad about his brother’s death. His father’s concern about his giving up his lessons is a reflection of the underlying guilt the father feels about having possibly neglected the needs of his son. The fact that Conrad is unable to communicate to him the real reasons for giving up his swimming lessons indicates that he still does not trust his father completely. However towards the end of the film, as his communication with the psychiatrist helps to unleash all the emotions locked up within him, Conrad is able to face up to the fact that he felt guilty for his brother’s death but that he had no cause for it because he was not responsible for it, inspite of the meta communication from his mother that he was. It is only towards the end of the film that Conrad and his father are able to really communicate with each other, once the element of instability created by the mother is addressed by her leaving so that the father and son are able to communicate on a level that is pragmatically and outwardly the same. Conclusion: The film “Ordinary people” is therefore a classic example of how external words cannot be interpreted literally because the actual meaning that is being conveyed by the speaker may be something quite different from what is being spoken externally. This only highlights the importance of the stress that Watzlawick et al placed on language and expression, since the external manifestations conflicting with the inner meaning is the cause of conflicts such as the “double bind” that often burst out in the form of extreme stress reactions such as Conrad’s attempt to commit suicide. Therefore effective analysis of communication patterns in the family is the only way to effectively treat mental and emotional problems that are the result of such conflicts. References: * Austin, J. L. (1962) How to Do Things With Words. New York: Oxford University Press * Blakemore, D. (1990) Understanding Utterances: The Pragmatics of Natural Language, Oxford: Blackwell. * Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1978) 'Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena', in Goody, E. (ed.) Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, pp56~311, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. * Bateson, Gregory. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind New York: University Press Books, pp. 202-03. * Canby, Vincent (1980). “Redford’s ‘ordinary people’ Movie review. [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/people- re.html; accessed 12/6/2005 * Carston, Robyn (2002) Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell * Haley, Jay. (1963) The strategies of psychotherapy. New York:Grune and Startton * Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. * Ruesch, Jurgen and Bateson, Gregory (1951). Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry ” New York. 1951 * Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986) Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. * Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Longman * Watzlawick, Paul, Bavelas, Janet Beavin and Jackson, Donald D (1967). “Pragmatics of Human Communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies and paradoxes” New York: WW Norton Read More