Social Factors Missing In the Development of Will Hunting and His Essay

Social Factors Missing In the Development of Will Hunting and His Crisis of Identity - Essay Example This paper is aimed at identifying the social factors that are missing in the development of Will Hunting (Matt Damon), the primary character in the movie, and his crisis of identity. Storyline The movie revolves around Will Hunting who works as a janitor in the prestigious MIT. Will is a mathematical genius but trapped in a mind that is not aware of his capabilities and haunted by his past. He spends his life like any other guy in the neighbourhood working on an average construction job and picking up fights along with his neighbourhood friends. . He has numerous encounters with the law as other guys in the neighbourhood. He has an identity crisis and tries hard to adjust with crushing his genius and trying to mould his life with that of the society around him. The various social factors in his past have contributed to Will’s arrogant attitude. His genius is identified by a MIT professor who decides to polish and expose Will’s incredible genius to the world. In order t o do so, he bails him out of the police station on a condition that Will work at his talent and see a psychologist. The movie continues with how Will with the help of psychologist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) overcomes his personal childhood experiences and discovers his true potential and genius. Social Factors There are various social factors that are missing in Will’s life which affect his development and leads to his identity crisis. Family Will growing up was an orphan and lived with his foster parents. The absence of his own family made an impact on Will and also family dynamics in the foster family was not an ideal one. Very soon he was left without a family. This experience contributed towards Will developing a negative attitude towards love and care. He believed that nobody would care or truly love him. He feared rejection and as a result of this he never had a consistent serious relationship as he used to get out of one before it could turn into a serious relations hip. Will also tried to fill in the void, created due to the absence of a family, with his friends. But most of his friends did not recognise or understand him except for his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck). Will blamed himself for all miss happenings in his life and was trying to accept his mediocre life. But even after trying hard, he could not accept his true identity and would make up an identity. This is best portrayed in the movie when he lies to Skylar (Minnie Driver) about his family saying he has big family with 12 brothers. The following conversation in the movie between Will and Skylar is where Will lies to overcome his identity crisis: Skylar: Do you have lots of brothers and sisters? Will: I'm Irish Catholic, what do you think? Skylar: But how many? Will: You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Skylar: Why? Go on, what, 5? 7? 8? How many? Will: I have 12 big brothers (Damon & Driver) Abusive Childhood Will was abused by his drunken foster father during his childhood. I t was an unstable neighbourhood that Will grew up in and to add to it he had an abusive foster father. Due to this, Will had to face issues of abandonment and rejections. This made a serious impact on Will. As a reaction to his troubled childhood, Will indulged in numerous illegal activities such as burglary, assault, violence, etc. Also he distanced himself from his family and spent most of his time reading books in the library. This hindered his development and only communication that he had was with his friends. Following is an excerpt from the movie where Will describes his childhood: What do you wanna know? That I don't have 12 brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? You don't wanna hear that... no, you don't wanna hea