Good Will Hunting is a very inspirational movie about friendship and love in a small town South Boston. It is about a Math genius,Janitor at MIT, and orphan boy named Will Hunting, his best friend Chuckie and Maguire, a psychology professor at a community college,who is Will’s therapist. Friendship according to Aristotle is a primary need in life. He believes that:” For no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods.”This movie is a great depiction of Aristotle’s three types of friendship that I will relate to, but also a challenge to Diotima’s speech in Plato’s theory of love in Symposium. I will concentrate on friendship and love relationships in the movie. Under Friendship, I will discuss the relationship
An example is when they are at the construction site and he says to Will:” you have got something none of us has...It would be an insult to us if you were here in 20 years.” This is a good example of virtuous friendship according to Aristotle. He describes it as a friendship in which people wish good for each other for the sake of both of them. He continues saying that this friendship is hard to find , but that it lasts longer than all the others. I absolutely agree with Aristotle. Most people nowadays want to become the best and always look for opportunities to make themselves great. Will’s best friend is one of a kind. He is never jealous of his friend receiving job offers, and really tries hard to make him understand that he want Will to become a good and respectable person. Chuckie knows that he is not expecting anything from Will, but he still pushes him to leave and start a new life. It can be deduced from this that virtuous friendship is really satisfying. I also believe that Aristotle would have placed this relationship under virtue
They seemed to ignore at the beginning of the movie when Prof. Lambeau goes to ask him for help with Will.Prof. Lambeau seemed to think that Maguire was a failure because he taught at a community college. Prof. Maguire considered his job honorable and didn’t want fame or status as most of his college friends seemed to only care about. Prof Maguire really wanted to see Will become a new and goal oriented man. Prof. Lambeau wanted to use Maguire to help Will leave his old habits and thus use him for his mathematics discoveries and theories. This was a perfect example of Aristotle’s utility friendship. Aristotle describes as one where one expects something useful for himself. This kind of relationship is the most popular nowadays. We all want great things for ourselves and thus we do anything to get there. The movie illustrates well how the audience,meaning us, would first think that Professor Lambeau really wants Will to go on the right track. In the end, however, it is clear that all along he wanted to make Will part of his work and thus make a name for both of them. Nevertheless, Prof. Maguire is a very understanding man who wants the best for will even if Will does not follow the Mathematics
...n Boston. Hooks had to deal with on going internal struggle that classism played on the attitudes of people who were not low class. She talked about needing money to survive at Stanford but also since her family back in the south was low class the money that she made was sent back home to her family to help out. Both of these characters over came tremendous odds; but Good Will Hunting was just a movie and Bell Hooks Keeping Close to Home was an actual account of the endeavors that she faced during the career at Stanford University.
The protagonist in the motion picture Good Will Hunting is called Will, and he is described to be a high intellect person but with recluse tendencies whereby he has kept to himself mostly having only a few friends near him. The young adult is employed as a janitor in the university where can work out a difficult question presented to the students by the professor. The problem appears to be quite difficult for the students, but he does not struggle. The teacher takes an interest in the young man and stands for him in court and takes responsible for him. He takes him to therapy to treat his psychological disorder which becomes apparent with the actions and words that he utters in the film. Will is tough in the therapy sessions until he later
Friendship can be debated as both a blessing and a curse; as a necessary part of life to be happy or an unnecessary use of time. Friends can be a source of joy and support, they can be a constant stress and something that brings us down, or anywhere in between. In Book 9 of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses to great lengths what friendship is and how we should go about these relationships. In the short story “Melvin in the Sixth Grade” by Dana Johnson, we see the main character Avery’s struggle to find herself and also find friendship, as well as Melvin’s rejection of the notion that one must have friends.
Once upon a time, there was a little bunny named Harriet, and she loved nothing more than playing with her best friend Alice. Alice lived across the field from Harriet’s burrow. They spent hours nibbling on clover and wiggling their whiskers. Most of all, they loved playing with Harriet’s Wii. One tragic day, the Wii broke. The next day, Harriet waited and waited for Alice to come over to play. Alice did not come that day, nor the next. Alice never came over to play again. Harriet did not know that Alice had found a new friend, with a Wii that worked. When Harriet found out about Alice’s betrayal of their friendship, she wondered: what is a true friend? In an attempt to ease her pain, Harriet got a big bowl of ice cream, and lost herself in reading the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. There, she discovered that there were actually three different forms of friendship: pleasure, utility and perfection.
II In Books VIII and IX, Aristotle discusses the role of friendship in the good life.
Sean Maguire, Will’s shrink best articulates the sense of loyalty when he said to Will, “ You know, Chuckie’s family, he’d lie down in fuckin’ traffic for you. ”(Good Will Hunting, Gus Van Sant) One of the film’s earliest scenes portrays Will and friends fighting a group of men playing basketball whom where apparently old kindergarten rivals. Although it is excessive and immature to fight over an issue that occurred twenty years ago, the fight shows the sense of compassion and protection they have for each other. Additionally the actual fight scene is long, gruesome and shot in slow motion.
Good Will Hunting is a film which conveys many interlocking themes and messages to its viewers. One of these nicely woven themes is placing trust in the people we care about as well as people we have only recently become acquainted with. Another message, arguably more significant than the last is finding and pursuing the potential one has and bringing meaning into our lives in any form we choose. I believe the potential and success this film demonstrates is that success, growth, and meaning in a person’s life does not always have to come in the form of advancing in a career or social status but rather in the form of overcoming hardships and developing close reciprocating relationships.
While it was a huge success financially and critically acclaimed as well, the movie, Good Will Hunting, offers vivid focus on a young math savant from the socioeconomic realities of Boston’s South End, an underserved section of town that is not unlike inner city environments across the country. I will review and critique the film from the perspective of sociology and the changes a marginalized youth is able to go through thanks to his hitherto unknown brilliance in math. The striking contrast between the bad Will and examples of the good Will, and the juxtaposition between the economic deprivations that Will grew up in – including being
Friendship is not something that has adapted over time. The desire to seek out and surround ourselves with other human beings, our friends, is in our nature. Philosophers such as Aristotle infer that friendship is a kind of virtue, or implies virtue, and is necessary for living. Nobody would ever choose to live without friends, even if we had all the other good things. The relationship between two very different young boys, Bruno and Shmuel’s in the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an example of the everlasting bond of a perfect friendship based upon the goodness of each other.
Aristotle argues that friendship is a vital part of life. It serves not only as a means to bond individuals together, but also a necessity in achieving overall happiness. Aristotle comments on the various types of friendships that exist, and the role they each play in society. He explains three overarching types; utility, pleasure, and complete friendship. Yet, with family, friendship is different than it is with companionship. As Aristotle states in his piece, Nicomachean Ethics on friendship in families, “they all seem to depend on paternal friendship” (Aristotle, 1161b18). In The Aeneid, Aeneas and Anchises’ relationship, perfectly embodies this. The father son bond does not distinctly resemble one of the three types, rather it is a friendship in of itself; a paternal friendship.
Aristotle presents his view of the mutual desire for good in others, or Friendship in his work, The Nicomachean Ethics. He asserts that friendship comes in three types, Virtue Friendship, Use Friendship, and Pleasure Friendship. He distinguishes Virtue Friendship as the perfect friendship, leaving Use Friendship and Pleasure friendship as deficient friendships. C.S. Lewis presents his view of friendship, which is motivated by appreciation love, in his book The Four Loves in a manner seeming to correspond to Aristotle’s concept of Virtue Friendship. Lewis also presents his perception of Companionship, which seems to correspond to Aristotle’s notion of Use and Pleasure Friendships. Lewis presents a more modern and seemingly accurate rehabilitation
An individual is shaped and molded by how they are treated by those that surround them. Most people value the opinions of those they care about and want to act in accord. Consequently, the choices people make are greatly influenced by the people in their lives. Sometimes, someone will become close with people who are different from each other. Such is the case in Good Will Hunting. Will Hunting (Matt Damon) struggles between the people that created him and the people that discovered him.
The film “Good Will Hunting” follows the story of Will Hunting (Matt Damon) a self-taught genius who works at one of the most prestigious technology schools; MIT, as a janitor. Will is an orphan with a criminal record of Assault, grand theft auto, assaulting a police officer, etc. Will solves a complex math problem, which leads to him being discovered by professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard) as a genius. Professor Lambeau makes a deal with the judge when Will is incarcerated to be on parole under Lambeau’s supervision and Will is ordered to see a therapist once a week. Will Outsmarts many of the therapists, which forces Lambeau to go to his last resort, college friend and psychology teacher Sean Macguire (Robin Williams).
An Analysis of the Movie ?Good Will Hunting? and the Main Characters Will Hunting and Sean Mcguire
Aristotle wrote on many subjects in his lifetime but one of the virtues that he examines more extensively is friendship. Aristotle believes that there are three different kinds of friendship: utility, pleasure, and virtuous friendships. He also argues that a real friendship should be highly valued because it is a complete virtue and he believes it to be greater than honor and justice. Aristotle suggests that human’s love of utility and pleasure is the only reason why the first two types of friendships exist. Aristotle also argues that humans only set up these types of relationships for personal gain. But when he speaks of the virtuous friendships, Aristotle states that it is one of the greatest attainments one can achieve.