The Burden of Emotions
Please note this post contains spoilers from the following books/films -
Perks of Being a Wallflower
Good Will Hunting
Call Me By Your Name
“Human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things they could get used to”
Arundhati Roy
In the animal kingdom, short term desires trump long term plans. A lion that is hungry will instinctively begin to scan the savanna, searching for an enemy... hunting down its prey. A monkey that is angry will begin to wrestle its brothers and sisters, no matter the consequences. A frog that has reached the right age, will impulsively attempt to attract its friends through mating calls and dances. In many ways, us humans are exactly like the animals described above and yet, we are also quite different.
As we have evolved and built societies that encourage communal living and long term planning, we have learned impulse control. Us humans have the unique ability of being able to store our emotions in emotional batteries that we can always pull from at later times. A couple in a struggling relationship will always be on the lookout for a mistake that their counterpart has made; slowly compiling the anger they feel towards them; slowly charging their emotional batteries.
While this ability to store emotions may seem like an advantage that allows us to make rational decisions in a timely manner, it can often normalize the pain that we constantly feel or create a false sense of hope that can lead us to our own demise.
Humans can repress incredible amounts of their feelings, allowing those emotions to build up over a long period of time. But with this compounding effect comes a tipping point at which the battery becomes overcharged and bursts wide open. In The Story of an Hour, we see Mrs. Mallard, a woman who has suffered decades of pain only to react to her husband’s death with an outpouring of relief that leads to her own death. Her face is described to be “bespoke with repression” with hands that feel “powerless” and a body that feels like the “possession” of another man. It is clear that Mrs. Mallard never saw herself as having control over her emotions until the very moment described in the story when she finally felt “body and soul free”. The years of pain, anger, and fear she felt for her husband compounded in a cup of water that was filled to its absolute brim. All it took was a single event... a single drop, for the cup to overflow.
In Middlemarch, the struggle between stockpiling emotions and expressing what is immediately felt is even clearer and creates the tension that propels the story forward. Over the course of the couple’s argument, Rosmand can physically feel the loss of her power and say in the relationship, ultimately leading her to reflect on the decisions she made up until that point. This climactic moment pulls from all of the earlier experiences Rosamond had with her husband. All the anger she felt, all the hatred, all the frustration. She never let her feelings loose which leads to everything being compounded and eventually, her accepting and even normalizing her own suffering. By the end of the piece, she blames herself for the suffering that is imposed on her as she claims “she would have never married him” had she known what he would do to her. Rosamond feels what she experienced was always under her control.
Oftentimes, this “emotional baggage” we carry around with us does in fact begin to take a toll on us. Many people who were abused or assaulted as children isolate themselves from society, adopting the path of “learned helplessness” and carrying around the emotional baggage from their childhood that decides their daily decisions. In The God Of Small Things, Estha carries around the embarrassment, agony, and pure terror he felt after being molested as a child. What was once an excited, curious, and care-free child becomes an isolated, pessimistic, anxious adult. Many characters in films and stories like Estha and Rosamond begin to blame themselves for the pain that burdens them. In Perks of Being a Wallflower, the climax of the film (and novel) takes on Charlie’s struggle with fully piecing together what he had experienced as victim of his aunt’s sexual desires, as he begins to blame himself for her actions and chooses to almost take his life for an event that he had carried with him for more than a decade. In Good Will Hunting, Will refuses to release the emotions he’s stored inside him from his father’s abuse. His counselor Sean, in order to get Will to be more open and feel more comfortable in his clinic, employs the simple strategy of reminding Will that what he faced was not his fault. This beautifully crafted scene thanks to the brilliant acting of Robin Williams and Matt Damon, showcases the emotional baggage many of us hold with us from years past that can result in a massive outpouring of emotion when released.
On the other hand of the scale lies emotions of happiness that are so strong that when released, they can disappoint us and break us down. Individuals who store up all their feelings of unreciprocated happiness and love can create a false sense of hope for themselves, that when released can lead to a state of anger and disappointment that is even lower than their normal emotional state. In Call Me By Your Name, the bond between Elio and Oliver that is built over the course of their summer adventures together results in Elio having an abundance of love for Oliver that he keeps to himself. He doesn’t tell his friends. He doesn’t tell his parents. He doesn’t even tell Oliver until their summer together is almost at its end. At the end of the film, when Oliver calls Eliio and tells him that he is engaged, Elio’s disappointment is immeasurable. Not because he is jealous, not because he is sad that they never had their happy ending together, but because he was reminded of Oliver only to be let down once more. All the time they had spent together, all the emotions they had felt together, all the experiences they had lived together rushed back to him only for his gut to drop upon hearing the news. In this gripping, yet meditative final scene, we witness as Elio reflects on their relationship and lets the emotional baggage he had carried with him all this time burn in the flames.
Comments
Post a Comment