Movie Anaysis on Forrest Gump

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Movie Analysis of Forrest Gump Movie Analysis of Forrest Gump Jonelle Powell The Chicago School of Professional Psychology Abstract Erik Erikson’s stage of psychosocial development explains the eight stages in which a developing human should go throughout their lifespan. Each stage confronts and explains the challenges that one would experience. In this paper, I will be explaining how the movie Forrest Gump relates to Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development theory. Forrest Gump experienced many changes as he progressed. We observe these transitions that Erikson mentioned in this movie. His model negotiates the biological and sociological forces that an individual successfully master from infant to adulthood. The movie Forrest Gump is a great visual of Erik Erickson’s psychosocial theory. Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks, goes through developmental change as it occurs throughout his lifespan. Erik Erikson believed, that a unique developmental task confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved before moving to the next stage (Santrock, 2010). According to Erikson, this crisis is not a catastrophe but a turning point marked by both increase vulnerability and enhanced potential (Santrock, 2010). In each stage of Forrest Gump’s life, a crisis occurred, and the movie showed how the character Forrest interpreted the crisis and dealt with the crisis. In the movie, you are able to see Forrest as a child, and the relationship he has with his mother, and later, the relationship he builds with his childhood sweetheart, Jenny, played by actress Robin Wright. As stated earlier, Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory of social development views the development of the human personality continued over several developmental stages. Erikson seemed to focus on the different stresses and different paths that our lifecycles through to the

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