The Shining and Family

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Family Annihilation and Cinema This essay plans on demonstrating the commonalities between the film The Shining and family annihilation. The Shining is a psychological horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Jack Nicolson as he descends into madness and attempts to kill his family. Terms which will be included are; Power, Status, status hierarchy and stereotypes. Power is defined as the ability to influence the behavior of others without resistance. Status/status hierarchy is the honor or prestige attached to a person or group to one's position in society. Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women. And stereotypes are defined as an adopted thought about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things. "Family annihilation" is a term used to refer to someone who commits homicide against his, or her own family. These instances usually involve immediate members, but there are instances of the perpetrator targeting other relatives. There are multiple reasons why family annihilation occur. Reasons such as spite or revenge, perhaps where a spouse kills their ex-partner due to divorce or custody issues. Other reasons could include mental illness, severe depression and instability within the household. This type of murder or murder-suicide differs from other forms of mass murder in that the murderer kills family members or loved ones rather than anonymous people. This means that there is a different psychodynamic and psychiatric significance, however the distinction is not made. What is a common stereotype among mass murders within the family, is that the perpetrator is typically the father. However there are many cases where either the wife or children commit the assault. However, for the sake of this paper we will stick to one of the
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