Ellen's View Of Her Mother example essay topic

TITLE OF PAPER HERE! The issues that Ellen Gulden faces and her methods of resolving them can be analyzed using several approaches. To view her role as a successful writer on the fast track, the neo psychoanalytical approach can be sued. Her personality can be viewed as compliant, as she has an intense need to obtain approval from her superiors and peers of her profession. Yet within her role as employee, she also displays instances of the aggressive personality, characterized by her behavior at work toward those whom she sees as being out to take her place. Everyone is a potential hostile enemy, ready and waiting to benefit from her hard work.

Domineering of a majority of her coworkers, she is driven to achieve superiority and power (Schultz & Schultz, 2002). Her personal relationships are not seen as truly loving, as she does not truly give of herself. The romantic relationship can be seen as superficial, as there is a lack of true vulnerability on her part. This lack could be a detached personality behavior, as Ellen seems to manifest an almost neurotic trend of moving away from people, as well as an intense need for privacy (Schultz & Schultz, 2002).

Very little is known about the self that is revealed to Jordan, her boyfriend. However, it is when Ellen returns home due to her mother's illness that a more complete view of her personality is revealed. Horney's neurotic needs theory is useful to examine how Ellen reacts to being thrust into the stressors of a traditional female role. While disappointed in the fact that her father asked her to interrupt her life to return and nurse her mother; she wants her parents affection and approval.

Her clumsy attempts to make lunch for her mother's social group (and their bemused approval) show a slight change from the fast pace that we see at the beginning. Her attempts to gain approval from her father do not occur as easily. She eagerly awaits his critique of her writing, and is confused and disappointed by his ambiguous advice. While she clearly sees him as powerful, prestigious, and at the pinnacle of his achievement, she seems to want a closer relationship, such as the one he seems to display to her brother. Unfortunately, Mr. Gulden's views toward her and her writing are quite narrow and limited. She is a good writer that needs to "give more of herself"; she is not good enough to stay in New York to further her career with an exclusive interview, yet she is good enough to write the forward of her father's book.

Even this honor is not as golden as it seems-he has placed restrictions on what she will be able to write. Ellen's self sufficiency departs as soon as she returns home. While she wants to be an ideal daughter / woman /writer, she falls short in her quest for perfection. With her mother's health failing, it is impossible to fulfill the perfectionist role, and when a nurse is hired to assist (MOTHER'S NAME HERE! ), we realize that a great deal of denial has occurred. Ellen's view of her mother could be seen as typifying an aggressive / detached personality. Even the simple act of conversation reveals how Ellen unconsciously feels superior to her mother.

Each statement by (MOTHER) is exactly restated by Ellen as if MOTHER is an intellectual inferior, a fact that MOTHER readily picks up on. This is not the case with FATHER. Ellen's adoration of her father's work doesn't seem so much that of a daughter as it does a devoted fan or a student seeking guidance from an expert. As she speaks about FATHER'S work, there is a mixture of awe and astonishment that such a person is actually related to her.

FATHER is the epitome of all that Ellen wishes to be, and urbane, witty confident writer. Yet due to FATHER'S and society's expectations, she cannot obtain the role she desires, and cannot fulfill the traditional role-a conflict between her compliant (moving toward her father); aggressive (moving against her mother); and her detached (her need for privacy) personalities (Schultz & Schultz, 2002). Horney's feminine psychology offers an explanation for Ellen's almost constant anxiety about how to attain her "proper role" in life. The stresses of taking care of the home and assisting her mother take their toll, and she attempts to drink away her sorrows as she vents her anger about the constraints that society places on females.

Her father and brother have means of escape from the day to day drudgery of daily life, as does every male, she reasons. Yet women not only have to deal with the grief-they also have to deal with keeping the household running as smoothly as before. The changes of Ellen's personality cannot be completely explained by the model proposed by Horney. The transition from a young woman totally focused on her own needs to a young woman with a much more mature outlook on her actions. There was more than a chance meeting with a senator who, engaging her in conversation, suddenly makes her realize that external trappings aren't what is truly necessary to live an actualized life.

It can be assumed that Ellen did not gain any new traits during this period, and the changes in her neurotic needs do not necessarily mean a change in traits. Instead, this could be seen as a transition from neurotic competitiveness to normalcy..