Burning Bed Essay

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The Burning Bed The movie begins in the summer on 1963; Mr. & Mrs. Hughes meet at a party. Months later they get married and have their first child, altogether they have four children. As the relationship grew older James began to get more hostile, violent, and abusive. After Francine could no longer take Mickey’s abusive behavior she took matters into her own hands. This being said I will address James & Francine’s characteristics, learned helplessness, and the cycle theory of violence. First of all, James & Francine’s characteristics collide. James is abusive and Fran just takes the exploitation from him. James blames his behavior on her, takes the kids as a means of control and displays emotional abuse. Francine is socially isolated, has low self-esteem, and loyal. Mickey first blames his actions on Fran when he came in from a long day of job hunting. Mickey looks over at Francine’s blouse, hauls off and hits her. After doing this he apologizes for putting his hands on her, but says he just didn’t want her wearing sexy things like that in front of his family. Another characteristic was using the children as a means of control to potentially get Fran back with him. This is the scene when Mickey went over Francine’s mother house and said he would burst the door in her face if she didn’t let him get the kids. Once again James got his way because Fran comes back to him for the kids. Francine is isolated by James controlling ways, for an example Mickey asked her where she had got her new ring from and she told him she went into town; after telling him this he slapped her in front of the company and she isolated herself. Fran was also very loyal to him, but James didn’t seem to think so and if he did know he made sure she stayed that way because he beat her for smiling and looking when a partner of his told him Fran was pretty. In addition, to the abuse Francine
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