Negative Expectations and the film While You Were Essay Example For Students

Negative Expectations and the film While You Were Essay SleepingNegative Expectations and the film While You Were SleepingEveryday people feel the effects of others and society imposed ways to act or perform in daily actives. These imposed way are called expectations. Expectations can help people live up to there potential, act politely, finish projects, spend more time with family, and many other things that yield a positive outcome. Unfortunately, expectations are not always positive. Often these imposed expectations lead individuals into unhealthy stereotypes, sexism, sudden career choices, nonproductive relationships, little self-esteem and many other adverse results. The film While You Were Sleeping displays how one self, traditions, societies and others expectations can all intertwine and become a maze of lies, false hope, self-fulfilling prophecies and confusion.The film takes place in Chicago during the early nineties. Lucy Eleanor Moderatz is a lonely, single, Thirty year old orphan who works at the el-train taking fares. Everyday she sits in a booth like a veal (While You Were Sleeping) and watches the commuters come and go. She soon falls in love with a commuter that she has never talked to. Peter Callaghan is a stereotypically arrogant businessman who everyone loves. On Christmas day, Lucy finds herself witnessing Peter being mugged, and then thrown onto the train tracks of a quickly approaching train. Lucy saves Peter from the train and he is taken to the hospital in a coma. When Lucy checks up on Peter in the hospital a nurse assumes Lucy is his fiance and introduces the family to her under that pretense. Peters family has heard of Peter s fiance, but has never talked to or been introduced to her, so they welcome her fully into the family unaware that the two have never met. Lucy is swept away by the idea and the acceptance of the family and does not reveal that she is not the real fiance, who happiness to be away in Paris on business. Soon Saul, Peters Godfather, finds out the truth but encourages Lucy to play along to keep the family moral up. This is all taking place while Jack Callaghan, Peters blue-collar brother and Lucy fall in love with each other. By the end of the movie, all is figured out and Jack and Lucy are married but not before some unhealthy expectations, awkward situations and conclusions are discovered. Negative self-expectations are when a person has an ideal or predetermined way imposed on them that is not rational or probably. (Bentley 257). Negative self-exceptions often occur when one does not think ahead, but acts suddenly, leading to generalizations and stereotyping. In addition, these expe ctations give the person an unreal image of themselves. People are lead to believe that they are inadequate in comparison to others because they do not measure up to a self-imposed standard. The standard is so stringent that no one can fully live up to it. Strict self-expectations cause anxiety, which can lead to panic attacks, and even hart attracts (Talbot 339). As well, these expectations are also unjust and thought of without proper justification (Bentley 260). Lucy Moderatz has negative self-expectations of herself, which lead her to be shy, and rarely out going. She seas Peter Callaghan everyday and watches his every move but she never approaches him. Lucy is a good example of the negative half of the success-begets-success idea. If an individual get off to a successful start in life, they will tend to continue to be successful; if they start off as a failure, they will tend to be one again and again (Stotland 66). Lucy feels that she has struck out with men before and she wil l again. This expectation of failure leads her not to attempt an encounter with Peter. Success and failure in one area often shows up in other areas. The success-begets-success idea articulates that soon Lucy will not reach out to any new people whether she wants to procure a romantic relationship with them or not due to her past rejections (66). We will write a custom essay on Negative Expectations and the film While You Were specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Hate Crimes EssayIn the film, Sam expects people to carry out a task for him so that things can run smoothly. Sam is closely attached to the Callaghan family so he does not want to see them hurt. When he finds out that Lucy is not really Peters fiance, he tells Lucy to play along. His reasoning is that the family would be hurt severely by the truth so Lucy must not tell anyone what really happened. By doing this he is asking Lucy to give up her life and be deceitful by pretending to be something she is not. All this so a family can feel better for a brief time before the truth is eventually found out. Sams expectation of Lucy is negative because he is only concerned with himself and his familys current wants, not for Lucys. Later in the film, once Peter wakes up form his coma, Sam talks to him about his expectation for him and Lucy. Sam tells Peter that she is the best thing for him and even calls him a putz if he does not marry her right away. After hearing this talk Peter propose s to Lucy and they plan a wedding even though neither of them truly want to. Sams expectations of others caused lies and hardship and could have yielded a marriage between to people that never knew or even loved each other. The expectations of the Callaghan family on Lucy also proved to be strenuous. Lucy is given a guilt trip to show up at family events. When she explains the situation to her boss. Her boss says You dont join them (a family) like you do the Marines (While You Were Sleeping). But this is what they wanted. They expected Lucy to become a part of their family and were intent on making this expectation a reality. The Callaghan family also rushes the marriage, they do not wait for Lucy and Peter to chose a date but they decide on having the wedding as soon as possible. Negative expectations enclose us everyday. They drive us to react and believe in things we would normally not. The film While You Were Sleeping displays these expectations in the story of Lucy Moderatz. Negative expectations are in our traditions, society, our peers and ourselves.Bibliography:Works CitedBently, Joseph C. The Counselors Role. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968. Cameron, John. An American Tradition. Newsweek 21 Mar. 1992: 57-58. Cooper, Harris M. and Thomas L. Good. Pygmalion Grows Up: Studies in the Expectation Communication Process. New York: Longman, 1983. Merton, R. K. The Self-fulfilling Prophecy. Antioch Review. 8 (1948) 193-210. Stotland, Ezra. The Psychology of Hope. San Francisco, 1969. Talbot, Edward and Robert White. Some Aspects of Self-conception and Role Demand in a Therapeutic Community. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 63.2 (1994) 338-345. While You Were Sleeping. Dir. Jon Turteltaub. With Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher and Peter Boyle. Caravan Pictures, 1995. 103 minutes. Youth Sourcebook on Sustainable Development. Winnipeg: IISD, 1995. Online. Internet. http://iisd.ca/youth/ysbk058.htm.