Psychological Issues Withinsling Blade
Submitted by peter944 on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
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Psychological Issues Withinsling Blade
When challenged with doing a report on a movie which dealt with psychological
issues, I decided to use "Sling Blade". The 1996 film written by, directed and starring Billy
Bob Thornton focuses on a mentally challenged man named Karl Childers (played by
Thornton). Some 25 years after murdering his mother's lover and then his mother in a rage
as a child, Karl is released from a mental hospital and forced to fend for himself. Upon
being released Karl immediately befriends a child named Frank and then is later taken in
by Frank's mother. Frank is a fatherless boy whose kindly mother has shacked up with an
abusive man named Doyle. Doyle drinks, lambasts his adoptive family and threatens others
with physical violence. There is never much doubt about the judgement day event that
concludes the story, Karl's past is forced to come back and haunt him. In this report I plan
to discuss some of the psychological issues which are shown in Karl.
Watching this film causes one to wonder what real insanity is. As a small child
Karl was forced by his father to bury his little brother while he was still alive. His father
played by Robert Duval was abusive, cruel and a heavy drinker. Both the abusive, heavy
drinking Doyle and Karl's father reject Karl believing he is the insane one.
The way I see it Karl learned a lot of his behavior through observation, especially
early on in his childhood. His parents abused and rejected him forcing him to live out in a
shed, sleeping in a hole he dug out in the ground, barely supplying him with food to
survive. His schoolmates were also very abusive towards him, calling him names and such.
When Karl heard his mother's screams and went to see what was going on
finding yet another abusive man on top of her, "having his way with her", he did what he believed was right and killed him. When he...
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