Amerian Beauty: Psychological Analysis

3960 Words16 Pages
What do you do when everything around you starts slipping through the cracks? What if your wife no longer pays attention to you and your daughter hates you? What do you do if you hate your parents and feel like a freak compared to your beautiful best friend? What about when you are failing at your job and losing your family at the same time? You wake up and put on a mask. Everyone has their own mask that they use day to day to get through the hardships and burdens life can bring. In American Beauty the framework of masks is examined in a symbolic manner. We use masks because we are afraid that other people will see our inferiorities and weaknesses. Being week and vulnerable makes people uncomfortable so we use the mask as a shield to hide what we do not want other people to see. In American Beauty, Lester and Carolyn do not tell their neighbors and friends that they are having marital trouble because they do not want people to know. They hide their true selves behind their mask of a perfect, loving family. The Burnham’s have assumed this identity of normalcy that is maintained by Carolyn and Lester in the outside world, when at home they are not really normal and no longer a happy family. On the outside, the Burnham family appears to be your average American family. Lester appears to be a normal father who works nine to five at his job. Carolyn appears to be a normal mother who works as a realtor selling houses and takes care of her family when she is not at work. Jane appears to be a normal disgruntled teenager who rebels against her parents but is still a good girl at heart. Angela, Jane’s friend, appears to be the quintessential pretty girl who is stuck up and thinks very highly of herself. Ricky, the Burnham’s new neighbor, appears to be that “weird” kid everybody knows. He’s quiet, reserved, shy, and at times a little creepy. I would not say that he

More about Amerian Beauty: Psychological Analysis

Open Document