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Not Without My Daughter

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Not Without My Daughter
“Not Without My Daughter” Perspectives Essay

In the Movie Not Without My Daughter, there are many sociological perspectives that can be used to analyze the events of the movie. Some may agree with what was done and say that this is the way of life there, while others may strongly disagree and simply be disgusted by the whole concept based on the fact that they grew in a different society. Overall the movie presents a multicultural couple with a girl, the husband Iranian and the wife is an American. The husband suddenly decided to bring his family back to Iran and live there. The wife gets lured to come to Iran and thus she can’t leave the country because her husband got her passport. In the end the wife escapes with the daughter to Turkey and back to the USA. There are several scenes throughout the movie that can be analyzed in different sociological perspectives, one of which is the scene where the wife is offered a chance to leave but without her daughter, weights the options and decides not to go. This can be analyzed with the systems theory, the social exchange theory, and the conflict theory.

When one decides to analyze this scene using the systems theory, one would conclude that the decision made by the wife was simply because of the fact that she was trying to work things out and go with the idea that when one of the family members is going through a phase or a problem the whole family must adapt and help that member out. A systems theory expert would suggest that the wife was simply trying to reason with him and bear with him through his phase.

If a social exchange theory expert was to analyze this scene he would say that the wife was looking at what would be more efficient for her, to stay in Iran with her daughter and not leave without her or to save herself and get the daughter later. The decision was made not to leave without the daughter and therefore all the struggle has occurred and all of the problems occurred. As well as the decision,

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