Analysis of a Beautiful Mind - 1

Ron Howard’s The Beautiful Mind is an American film that follows the life of scientific and mathematical genius and Princeton University graduate John Nash. The film begins with Nash and his colleagues at a ceremony where he is a co-recipient for a math scholarship. His obsession with patterns and math is first noticed when he attempts to match the reflection from the sun and the glass jug to the patterns on a colleagues tie to which he responds: “There must be a mathematical explanation for how bad your tie is,” (A Beautiful Mind, Howard: 2001). In his first appearance he seems anxious and very socially awkward. But it wasn’t until meeting his roommate, Charles Herman, that things began to change. As a graduate and a new, aspiring professor Nash was under tremendous amount of pressure to publish and become more established. With the increased pressure from both the head of the math department and others, John developed an obsession with finding his inspiration which he gains from his colleagues on a night the decided to see who can best approach a group of women at the bar. This concept leads John to develop and publish his theories and concepts and to a job he has been seeking.
John presents with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), an Axis II disorder according to the DSM-IV-TR. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a cluster B disorder that is involves three elements: an inflated view of oneself, a lack of warmth of empathy for relationships with others, and using a variety of strategies to help maintain this inflated self-view (Campbell & Baumeister, 2006: 423). John’s inflated view of oneself is exemplified when he displays the belief that he is superior to fellow graduates and even the textbooks in which he was made to read in school. Additionally, he believed he was best able to provide solutions better than a textbook or a professor could ever “train” him to. Another example is when he was playing a game with a friend and upon losing the game, he