Tuesdays with Morrie - Research Paper Example

Tuesdays with Morrie” Film Analysis Grief can loosely be defined as a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to theloss of someone or something with which a close bond was formed. In the film, Morrie is going through grief after learning about his imminent death, and his strategies of dealing with it especially with the help of his former protégée Mitch forms the central plot of the narrative. When Mitch learns that his former professor had been diagnosed with ALS, and thus being terminally ill, he decides to renew the friendship (Albom, 1999). Due to the workers’ strike, he has a lot of free time in his hands as a result every Tuesday he goes to Morrie’s home and they would talk for hours with Morrie teaching him on“how to die well”. Aside from fear of death, Morrie seems to fear that as the disease progresses he will become more dependent and less capable of taking care of himself. He dreads the time when he will not be able to carry out even tasks as simple and personal as wiping himself after using the bathroom. Covertly, it is also possible that Morrie fears the gradual development of powerlessness and inventible demise, which will make him immaterial to people especially his friends and family. Therefore, he keeps giving interviews to the media, which he hates so that he may retain a sense of relevance; in addition, he encouraged Mitch to write their last “thesis” together, as this can serve to justify the claim that he was fighting against irrelevance and obscurity by trying to leave a legacy. Theoretically, the case study is open to several viewpoints and frameworks, and the most common model for such situations being Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief in which she theorizes on the emotions that people go through when dealing various types of grief. According to Ross, there are several stages of grief which are denial, isolation, anger, bargaining depression and acceptance, this stages often occur to people dealing with death, own of that of a loved one (Kubler-Ross, 2005). However, although they are arranged sequentially, not everyone goes through all of them in that order. Morrie’s most prominent stage is acceptance, and the primary focus of the film is to demonstrate how he has not only tried to come to terms with his death, but also influenced others. When he left the doctor’s office after the diagnosis, he promised himself that the situation would not break him and he would make the best out of it (Albom, 1990). Nonetheless, given the resilience and positivity with which Morrie is facing his situation, the strength based framework may be better or equally suited to explore his condition and subsequent reaction. This is a theory that focuses on emphasizing the strength of the grieving or suffering person as opposed to the psychoanalytical tradition of concentrating on the problem and trying to bring it out in the open for analysis. By discussing their past and reliving their experiences and mistakes, Morrie and Mitch are able to combine their Strength based and psychoanalytical framework. Morris experiences the cathartic effects of psychoanalysis by discussing the events of his past, and at the same time is able to gain resilience and inner strength by using his condition to help make other people’s lives better. Nevertheless, there are covert signs of denial and isolation, Ross’s theory model proposes that grieving people will tend to desire to be alone and isolated from other people since they do not want to be pitied. For example, while his wife would rather stay at home and look after him, he insists that he keeps on teaching although it would make his life significantly harder. The main thing most dying people fear is that they will be forgotten and may not leave a mark in the world (Holcomb et al., 2005), in this story, Morrie’s way of dealing with his imminent demise depicts a strong underlying desire to leave a legacy. He tries to change the lives of as many people possible and that is the reason he concedes to use mass media, which he would personally rather not use. However, Mitch manifests denial towards the professor’s inevitable death, and this is evinced in the fact that he keeps bringing him food even after it becomes impossible for him to ingest solid food. In this way, he is pretending that the old man is still healthy even though both of them know that the contrary is true (Cicirelli, 2002). One of the roles of social workers in respect to grieving people involves counseling and facilitating intervention measures so that they can deal with the negative emotions they are experiencing. People facing death are often prone to depression (Dickstein, 1977), and this can result in self-destructive actions and habits resulting from feelings of helplessness and anguish. Inasmuch as Morrie may not be exhibiting nay outward negative signs, as a social worker I would strive to cover all the bases since one can never really know how well someone is dealing with a problem as complex as death. One way I would help is by listening to him and being sympathetic just as Mitch was doing considering they would sit and talk on Tuesdays and sometimes-even cry. When facing grief, crying is often a good way of expressing ones bitterness and when there is someone to listen and sympathize, it always makes the grief easier to deal with (McLarin, 2004). As a social worker, I would encourage his friends and family to freely express their grief and openly show their concern for him, grieving people, especially when they have physical disabilities, sometimes decline when help is offered since they feel they are being a burden. Therefore, by encouraging others to be open in their actions and expression a social worker can help the victim feel they are an important part of their society thus be less inclined to reject assistance and build their self-esteem. Arguably, there is probably no better way of dealing with personal grief than using it to positively impact on the lives of other people, in Morrie’s case, he publicly and privately tried to reach out to people and help them by sharing his changed life perception. Consequently, whenever possible, I would organize and facilitate forums through which he may interact with other people through more media interviews or even one on one session. To this end, I could also arrange for him to visit a hospice or similar institution where he can meet people suffering from similar conditions. In this way, they can form support groups and he can discuss his problems with others who may understand his feelings better than someone un-afflicted would. At the end of the day, while conceding that death is inevitable, I believe that Morries and everyone else in his situation should be given as many chances as possible to make a positive impact and transcend the negativity of their condition. This is what in his own words can be described and “dying well”. References Albom, M. (1990) An Old Man, a Young Man and the Last Great Lesson. Doubleday; Volume 3, Issue 36. Cicirelli, V. G. (2002). Fear of death in older adults: Predictions from terror management theory. Journal ofGerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B, P358-P366. Dickstein, L. D. (1977). Attitudes toward death, anxiety, and social desirability. Omega, 8, 369-378. Holcomb, L. E., Neimeyer, R. A., & Moore, M. K. (1993). Personal meanings of death: A content analysis of free-response narratives. Death Studies, 17, 299-318. Kübler-Ross, E. (2005) On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. Simon & Schuster Ltd, ISBN 0-7432-6344-8 McLarin, J. (2004). Fear of dying. The Booklist, 100(22), 1905. Read More