Historical Figures: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Frederic Chopin

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

This Swiss philosopher (1712-1778) had a tumultuous emotional life from the beginning. In the opening pages of his autobiography, he writes, "my birth was the first of my misfortunes." In fact, his mother died from complications during childbirth, nine or ten days later. And a weak and sickly child was born.

Throughout his childhood, he was surrounded by women and had an unhealthy relationship with his family. He inherited a small library from his mother, from which he developed a passion for literature. He and his father lived in the idealization of Suzanne, his late mother, while voraciously "consuming" the entire literary collection she left behind.

Rousseau was definitely a Sexual 5: physical fragility, conflicts with an invasive woman and a very dramatic perception of human relationships. And, from the beginning, the search for a divine encounter through women. They took his father to leave him in Geneva, in the care of a shepherd and his sister, who subjected him to beatings and humiliation. These endowed him with a strong rebellion and also induced early sexual pleasure in the child, as well as a latent masochism that would characterize his sexuality forever, as well as a feeling of social inferiority. Still very young, he fell in love with Miss de Vulson, who was twice his age. His love affairs with women more mature than him will not be rare. The young Rousseau discovers and lives the songs of nature: in addition to books, he finds comfort in his walks in the countryside. In nature he finds a divine companion, kind, reliable and, above all, silent, which requires no effort from the young thinker.

Here we already find four idealizations of the Sexual 5: women, feeling, nature, and natural life, all of them playing the role of divine saviors. At the age of sixteen, he flees from Geneva to Savoy, where he meets the most influential woman in his life: Madame de Warens, a single Catholic twelve years older than him. In his words, "she had a beautiful face, blue eyes full of sweetness, a wonderful color of skin, and a lovely neck." Jean-Jacques immediately became a Catholic because, for him, "a religion preached by such a charming missionary woman could not fail to lead to paradise." These words reveal the deepest motivations of the spirituality of a Sexual 5, in whom the search for the divine is confused with the search for women.

When Rousseau turns twenty-one, an intimate relationship begins between them. Rousseau called her "mama." She lived this very close maternal relationship for years while falling platonically in love with other women, without ever consummating. After the love disillusionment with Ms. De Warens, he moves to Paris. There, he becomes the lover of a hotel employee, Thérèse Levasseur, who would become his companion until the end of their lives.

With her, Rousseau had five children; they hid the paternity of all of them and gave them up for adoption. His justification for such an attitude was feeling that he could not take care of them because they were poor and sick. The rest of his life would be accompanied by remorse for this great contradictory slab between his actions and his thoughts.

His fame as a thinker comes late, and not adapting to Parisian social life, he prefers to live isolated on the outskirts. This withdrawn style will cause several incidents and the breakdown of great friendships, a matter of life and death for a personality centered on passionate relationships of trust and the desire for deep intimacy with their own.

Fidelity in relationships is a vital issue, for when his great friend Diderot was arrested, he did everything Rousseau did. He offered to stay in his place and went to visit him almost every day. Several years later, Rousseau cut off his relationship with Diderot, awakening a common feeling in him: feeling betrayed.

The first great moment in Rousseau's intellectual and, why not, spiritual life comes during a walk in the woods: It was a moment of ecstasy where he glimpsed his path forward, answering negatively to the question about whether the progress of science had contributed to improving human life. He will write the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, where he develops the fundamental antithesis between the nature of man and the additions of civilization.

Subsequent works only take this thought to its ultimate consequences, which, more than a simple abstract idea, is a radical feeling. Many see in him the germination of romanticism. His assessment of the world of feelings, to the detriment of intellectual reason, and of the deepest nature of man, in opposition to the artifice of civilized life, will be the basis of the broad romantic movement that characterized the first half of the nineteenth century and which is still valid today.

Rousseau focuses his intellectual life on criticizing the excessive value given to pure rationality and defends other values that belong more to the human. He wants to free humanity from the shackles of reason, which, he claims, has corrupted the nature of man.

Humanity is good by nature but has been corrupted by culture. The human being has lost his nature and lives far from his true "I." The dictates of reason keep him within civilizing schemes that oppress him and divert him more and more from himself.

Rousseau will defend the "return to nature" as a rescue of the authentic life of man. We see here a marked trait of isolation and lack of credibility in a true encounter between individuals—so common among misers—and a strong idealization of nature.

There comes a time when Rousseau gets tired of a Paris that, he said, alienated him so much from himself, and he decides to return to Geneva. His desire is solitude and refuge in the middle of nature, where he can be in contact with his true self. For a time, he finds some solace and lives something like the life he wanted for himself and advocated against civilizing confinement. He manages to enter "in deep contact with nature," in his comforting walks through the forest and rowing on the lakes.

After a brief return to Paris, he finally returns to Switzerland. He stays at Madame d'Épinay's house, where he experiences another great moment of ecstasy with nature. In this state, he writes a novel, Julia or the New Heloise, very typical of his romantic personality, motivated by "a desire to love that he had never been able to satisfy." Rousseau tries to express a "nostalgia for idealized love" as well as give free rein to a repressed desire for love. It is the story of a man who knows love more through imagination than in reality.

A short time later, he meets Madame d'Houdetot and, delighted, places her on Julia's high pedestal. He lives a moment of great emotional intensity, but only in idealization. Nothing ever materialized between the two.

His relationship with nature was becoming more intense. In his free time, he walked or rowed, and that was when he found land. "Oh nature, oh my goodness, here I am, totally surrendered to your protection," he wrote. And he carried out his most balanced and profound work, a synthesis of his thought and his life: The Daydreams of the Solitary Walker. The title itself indicates, in three words, as many other typical features of Sexual 5: dreams and fantasy, not being fully together with the other, loneliness, and walks in nature.

Despite his criticism of society and its institutions, including religious ones, Rousseau always maintained a spiritual sense of life: Above all the dictates of reason or religious authority, there is the divine voice of the soul of man." On the day of his death, in July 1778, he looked up at the sky and said goodbye: "The portal is open, and God is waiting for me." He died in Thérèse's arms, at the age of sixty-six.

Frederic Chopin by Adri

This Polish composer and musician (1810-1849), unlike many musical geniuses, and despite being sexual, enjoyed a happy childhood. Born into a harmonious home, claimed by his mother to be beautiful, educated, and fascinating, devoted to the family—creating subsequent idealization.

Holidays in nature, with the wisdom of simple country people, marked his spirit and his music. Polish mazurkas became his familiar melody, which made music so original and, above all, romantic: a pure expression of deep and delicate feelings; sometimes sad, others sublime, but always reflecting the heart and soul of a man troubled and, at the same time, passionate about a natural life.

It is prototypical sexual. Chopin was of fragile and delicate constitution, always prone to pulmonary crises that accompanied him throughout his life. But he also shared with this

type of personality the strong spirit, beyond what the body could support. It grieved him not to be accepted on the battlefield to defend his beloved Poland. A feeling (and premonition) of death would accompany him from a very young age, after he and his sister had a bad flu and the girl died.

As a teenager, he was very successful with women, for his musical talent, charm, and chivalry. He compensated for this magnetism by always being in love and, as a good Sexual 5, he tended to experience his love affairs platonically. Music was his true love. When he was only seven years old, he composed his first work, a polonaise in G minor. Stimulated by success as a teenager, he composed a great work, his concerto in F minor, inspired by his first passion, Konstancja Gladkowska. Being a Sexual 5, he couldn't help but be moved by his romantic ideals. His music is marked by the strength of passion and nostalgia for that childhood idyll, which brought him so close to spiritual hope. The concrete woman and the deep longing for contact with the sacred are confused: the relationship with the woman will be desired and fantasized as if one lived among the gods. And his music, like no other, will be the clear expression of this ideal.

The first time Liszt and Mendelssohn heard him, they understood that it was the fingers of God that were playing, and that this young man had made the piano capture the language of infinity. Such is the search for love in a Sexual 5: the human and the concrete do not touch his heart; it must come from above and from far away.

Chopin experienced his true home in music, where those feelings arose that, in someone dominated by passion for greed, could hardly be exposed. He had in music a companion for his loneliness and his fantasies of love, for his suffering, isolation, and longing for his Poland.

He was a piano reformer and broke the rules. He understood that melody, in order to escape the mechanistic dictates of classical reason (the romantic aspect of the Sexual 5), needed to breathe like the human voice. So he "ordered" the piano to breathe, and Tempo rubato was born.

In Finck's words, "if tears could be heard, they would sound like Chopin's Preludes." Arthur Rubinstein wrote that "the Preludes are the great pearl of Chopin's oeuvre... the soul of the artist, his pain, his melancholy, his mystery, and his dream were divinely expressed."

This Sexual 5 was the dreamy poet of the piano, for whom he wrote his most intimate emotions, the most tender feelings of the human soul, enchanted by nature and intoxicated with love.

His first love, Konstancja, was for him the unprecedented ray of sunshine in his life. Seeing the young woman, Chopin was ecstatic and inhibited. He went to his room and, inspired by

this feeling, wrote a Nocturne in B flat minor, a novelty in the expression of the piano. He began to experience heaven and hell, in the uncertainty of being reciprocated, for more than six months.

Konstancja married someone else, and Chopin sentenced: "The Gladkowska married a certain Grabowski, but that does not exclude the platonic feelings that I still have with me." The Sexual 5 is attached to and nostalgic for past relationships. It is difficult for him to accept the loss, face the new, and move on.

More and more, he composed his music alone, seeking in it the charm that he did not find in human relationships. The great and insurmountable love was yet to come. Chopin fell under the spell of Delfina Potocka. With her, he experienced perhaps his only true love. Once again, he was about to live it in secret, but Delfina's temperament did not allow it, and she herself took the initiative in the relationship.

With her, Chopin could give himself completely to intimacy and trust (the most characteristic of this subtype). Delfina was delighted with his confidences and that he had chosen her as his muse and protector. Chopin never kept any secrets from her. Unlike his other love affairs, where he passively drifted as if in search of a mother's love, this was a relationship with a true woman and friend. But Chopin's intensity, in contrast to Delfina's fear (because of her previous disappointments), led to the breakup of the relationship. Chopin returned to the refuge of music, and Delfina returned to her ex-husband.

His inability to take charge of practical life required worldly and concrete support. In her loneliness, she wanted to get married, have a family, like the one she was born into in Poland. It is also an ideal of the Sexual 5, at the other end of his fanciful, adventurous, and illusorily free life. Form a family with a divine woman and, of course, create a sacred bond, an alliance of trust, and an idyll of love.

He meets Maria Wodzińska, a childhood friend who adores Chopin's eyes. In them, he projected his dream of a home. But he lived this dream more in fantasy than in reality, and Maria's family did not agree with the romance either. In the last breath of that dream, he writes one of his most passionate and painful works, the Ballad in G minor; and Maria, after their separation, will give the Vals del Adiós its name. Once again, he shuts himself up at home to live out his sad dream of love.

Chopin was already an idol, surrounded by honors in Paris. His performances were his only consolation; he was unhappy, despite his fame and professional success, which indicates a characteristic of the Sexual 5: a one-sidedness of the meaning of life, deposited only in his greatest interest, romantic passion. The world and other relationships don't matter as much.

Following Rousseau's lead, Chopin advocated the simple life, a return to nature, and the primacy of feeling and spontaneity over the rigidity of reason and meter. As a true Sexual 5, he rejected formal standards in expression. His musical work is the clearest manifestation of this romantic "rule": breaking rigid and traditional patterns and disciplines.

Disillusioned with love and alienated from social life, Chopin allows himself to be captivated by George Sand: a strong woman with a maternal spirit. With her, he was able to experience the refuge and comfort of a home and a family, where he could find tranquility and recover his energies (typical of greed). He felt protected and could live the harmony his soul craved. They spent some time in Mallorca, where Chopin found new inspirations in nature and lived the heyday of his art. But the harmony in Sand's house could not last forever. She had problems with her children, and Chopin, exclusive and possessive, did not accept the division of attention with his wife. Conflicts began; Chopin had attacks of jealousy, came under pressure, and began to distrust Sand's love. This distrust led them to separate. He persisted out of pride, refusing to admit his faults. Sand writes, in Lucrezia Floriani: "It is the jealous affection, suspicious and childish selfishness." He was secretly meeting Delfina. Chopin is alone again, lost in the world. Due to his strong pride, he refuses to give in.

Chopin opens up at the moment of death. His vibrant soul, passionate and overwhelmed by extremes of ecstasy and pain, surrenders: "I can no longer be sad or happy; to tell the truth, I don't feel. And I wait, with resignation, for my end." Accompanied by a cleric friend, he reconciles with himself and, with gratitude, seems to expel the accumulated sadness from his heart: "Now I am in agony. It is a rare favor that God grants to man: to reveal to him the moment when his agony begins; this grace was granted to me. Do not disturb me."

Literary and Cinematic Examples

Charlie Barber

The film narrates the separation of a New York couple who have a son. An intellectual theater director, Charlie has a wife, Nicole, an actress who has followed him from Los Angeles to New York. She receives a job offer for a television series in Los Angeles and, disappointed by Charlie's reaction, decides to leave him and move to California.

Whether we call the passion of the Sexual 5 intimacy, trust, or the lair of two, Charlie's drama is precisely the fall from that dream. Intimacy with his wife is betrayed, both because Nicole leaves him and because she decides to do it through lawyers. The mentioned intimacy does not exist in reality: the couple has been in crisis for a long time. For Charlie, strongly identifying with the parental role at first, the drama consists of losing his best

actress and being estranged from his son. He has created his own world around the theater. He has a group of friends, but they are the actors and technicians of the company. Absorbed by his figure as director, there is nothing else for him. That is his way of disassociating himself from the rest of the world.

Charlie also seeks intimacy with the defense attorney, whom he meets through Nicole's mother, with whom he maintains a good relationship. In Bert, the lawyer, Charlie recognizes humanity: "He is the first person, in this lawsuit, who treats me as a human being." And precisely because he feels that his trust has been betrayed, he does not abandon Bert, since the matrimonial lawyer seeks to reach an agreement while Charlie, uncompromising, is rooting for his wife and son to return to New York.

Charlie's other intimate relationship is with his company, where he feels like the head of the family and tries to protect and care for everyone, even supporting them financially; he even pays attention to interns. The sexual subtype is more expansive than the other E5 subtypes. Charlie tries to make up for the lack of a maternal bond with dual relationships, the ones born and wounded, seeking security in the confidence of not being abandoned, which is present in the film. His wife also compensates for the childhood deficiency, the underlined lack of attention that Charlie had. The "positive inventory" describes her as a woman who cares for him like a mother.

Another maternal aspect that she projects onto Nicole is that "her fridge is too full." As a reproach to abundance, if it were too much, it would be wasteful, something an E5 cannot allow himself the pleasure of. Then, as a confirmation of his feeling of lack: "At home, you never go hungry," which is expected of a mother.

Nicole has an emotional character, with the typical intense and persistent attachment. They compensate neurotically. If Charlie (E5) needs to receive, she needs to give.

Another aspect of her that Charlie likes (and lacks) is the courage to show herself. "She's a great dancer, contagious." Nicole has the vitality that Charlie lacks; we see her dancing with people, happy and free. He is aware of his deficit: "I wish I could dance like her."

The character of the protagonist is exposed when he confesses how hard it is for him to admit not having seen a movie or read a book. "I pretend and say I saw her a long time ago," he says. Charlie cannot abandon the image of a highly cultivated intellectual, a form of pride that is actually shame and fear of showing his own shortcomings, with which he is in close contact.

The list of things he likes about Nicole ends with "she is my favorite actress," something that emphasizes the need to idealize his wife, giving her a central and elevated role in the field of his ideal realization: the dream he imagined living with her.

Then it's the wife we hear describe Charlie: "He's indomitable, he doesn't let other people's opinions get in the way of what he wants to do. You can't criticize or interact with his ideas." The Sexual 5, the most aggressive and forceful of the three subtypes, disguises its rigidity with heated arguments. When they do not accept or criticize him, he perceives it as a rejection.

"He eats as if he wanted to get the food off himself." This describes the feeling of lack and also the disconnection from the body. Eating is something mechanical and not a moment to give yourself pleasure. "...as if there wasn't food for everyone." A style that reveals the fear that the other can take away what is yours. It is necessary. He has the need to control the world around him; sometimes he looks for an external order to compensate for the sensation of internal fragmentation.

"Save light." Another aspect of greed, in the sense of control of economic resources, but also a symbol of the experience of having to retain, save, and keep inside.

"Don't look in the mirror." As vain as it may be, a Sexual 5 is not concerned with looking after appearance, which is not of prime importance. It is also interesting to interpret the phrase symbolically, as if Charlie forgot to have a body, and forgot to look at himself.

"She cries when she goes to the movies." The Sexual 5 has easier access to emotions than the other E5s, but it is convenient that a film be the access route to emotion, and not real life. In fact, on the scene, when leaving the cinema, it is the son who says, "I have cried four times." Charlie replies, "Me too," and wonders, "Who knows if it was at the same times?" He doesn't ask his little one, "When have you cried?" It is moving that hope, glimpsing that his son has cried at the same moments. Perhaps that way he would feel a greater connection with him, or he would see himself as more understood.

"It is self-sufficient," continues, offscreen, the wife. Its independence from the other serves the E5 to escape from the anguish of the demands that may be placed on it. The relationship always implies a demand, the risk of emotional blackmail.

"Never give up." We see this in the interaction with his son. Despite the pessimistic resignation of E5, he experiences a strong need to keep the family unit cohesive. Since the family of origin is not there, and if the created one were to break up, the internal one would be too.

"I would: I would have to deal with the collapse of the dream of someone to trust and the ideal of love."

"Accepts all my moods, doesn't get involved." In addition to patience and fear of losing the other, we see here his emotional detachment.

"It's very competitive." So much so, in fact, that he avoids investing energy in the competition lest he risk losing and feeling humiliated. We will see this later, when faced with a prestigious job offer.

"He likes being a father" and "he's sweet." The wife is very sensitive to this tender side of her husband, to this hidden sensitivity that, as will happen later, can also overflow in an attack of icy and destructive rage.

"He loses himself in his world." As an intellectual eroticism, he derives pleasure from recreating himself in his inner world, in his thoughts, in a reality that cannot be invaded and where he can fantasize the satisfaction of his needs.

"His childhood was marked by alcohol and violence." The character of the Sexual 5 is formed as a reaction to the invasion of his privacy. Charlie learned to withdraw, to anesthetize.

"He manages to create a family with the people around him." Without leaving aside the last ones — "...even with the intern..." — with whom he identifies.

Interior - Night - Subway

Charlie stands silently looking at Nicole, checking her expressions and reactions from a distance, saying nothing. He has a childish look, seeks contact, waits for a glance, and fears the woman's reactions. The request is mute, as if the other had to guess his need, like a child wanting his mother's attention, who looks the other way, absent. In relationships, sexual Fives can remain silent for a long time, not knowing what to say. He is afraid to speak because of the emotional reaction it could generate in the other; he fears being devoured, overwhelmed by his emotions.

Here’s the corrected version with grammar fixes:

Interior - Night - Family House

Back at the house, it's Charlie who speaks: "We'll split things up, I don't care. You can keep most of it. We will find adjoining houses. We want the same." It doesn't seem like he's separating from his wife. What you are seeing is more of an issue of organizing their son's life. If Nicole stayed with the company, it might not change much for him. So far, their intimacy as a couple has not been shown. In fact, the relationship is more paternal-fraternal or labor-based. Charlie finds it terrifying to face the drama of abandonment (he will admit later), a female abandonment, which betrays the trust he placed in her.

"In the meantime, shooting the pilot for the series will be fun." Here comes the competitive and devaluing aspect of this character, especially towards Nicole. He sees the pilot as "funny," not as deep as the drama he plays with her. In fact, she replies, "Is that vulgar to you?" seeking his approval. He refuses to compare: "I never watch television; I couldn't tell you."

When Nicole gets up again, Charlie indirectly interacts with her; he picks up his drama notebook as he talks about his son, Henry. Nicole is the one who has to ask him to speak, to make comments about the scenes she has just performed in the dress rehearsal. First, he denies having anything to say, and then he does give his opinion: "I guess it doesn't matter anymore; you're not going to act in the play."

He finally reads the two notes, which seem like reproaches for what he is doing with his life. "Your attitude at the beginning of the scene is still too solemn... By the end, you could tell that you were forcing emotion." The sexual Five holds back and then walks away, not speaking, and when he does, it is with ambiguity or subtle contempt to avoid direct confrontation.

Interior - Day - Sandra's House

Charlie arrives at Nicole's mother's house in Los Angeles. His attitude is that of an old friend; he does not feel any discomfort from the separation. Beyond the character distance, we discover why he is so sure: he has obtained a substantial scholarship. The strength we perceive in the character comes from the success he has, a narcissistic compensation for the feeling of emptiness. As a Sexual 5, Charlie is unable to close the relationship, leaving bridges of ambiguous affectivity. Nicole is the first to whom he talks about the scholarship, in a friendly, brotherly, even intimate relationship.

Charlie doesn't show his happiness at winning it and goes straight to practicality, asking what to do with the money. Work is his passion, with which he identifies. As a true E5, his imagination is pessimistic about his professional future and the upcoming show. "You always have doubts at this stage," she notes.

Nicole's mother, Sandra, comes into the kitchen to welcome him. His relationship with her is freer and more uninhibited than the one he has with Nicole. They joke. He is sexual, cheerful, and his inner world is colorful and extravagant. It is Nicole's sister, Cassi, who gives Charlie the divorce notice, just as the lawyer had indicated. He is incredulous: "I feel like I'm in a dream." He doesn't react emotionally; he doesn't get angry or show sadness. Just a "I don't want this." He doesn't want the divorce lawyers involved, who will sneak into

the relationship and the ideal trust that he still wants to feel. "I thought we agreed not to involve the lawyers."

He continues to compartmentalize: on one hand, he separates, and on the other, he behaves as if the marriage continues.

Interior - Day - Lawyer Nora's Office

Nicole and Charlie's lawyers lay out their demands for the divorce. The crux of the matter is where the child should live. Charlie wants him to stay in New York, where the family was living and where he works. Nicole wants him to live in Los Angeles, where he doesn't want to move.

Charlie does not accept that his son is going to live four thousand kilometers away, so Bert, his lawyer, asks to speak with him privately. He advises Charlie to accept.

Charlie: "Then I can't be a father! ... You have to know I fought for him... I feel like a criminal."

He is afraid of losing Henry and feels blamed and guilty for his failure as a husband and father. Then, the lawyer tries to make him understand, in a way reminiscent of a rabbi (incarnating the figure of the wise old man in the film).

BERT: "Anything that comes out of here is temporary. Henry will grow up. Time is on your side, Charlie."

The lawyer's teaching is to let things flow, not be attached to your wishes. The profound advice here is the notion of non-attachment. But Charlie can't grasp this, and for his life, it’s an invitation to be counseled.

Interior - Day - Charlie's House - Los Angeles

Nicole describes how they will be evaluated by a judicial expert. "Sounds horrible," says Charlie. Nicole talks about the need to come to terms with each other for Henry's sake, to avoid huge legal fees.

Nicole: "Do you understand why I want to stay in Los Angeles?"

Charlie: "No."

Nicole: "That's not a constructive way to start."

Charlie: "It is! I just don't get it."

Nicole: "Remember you promised me we could stay here a while."

Charlie: "We talked about a lot of things when we were married: going to Europe... And we didn’t do anything!"

Nicole: "You turned down a position at Geffen that could have kept us here for a year."

Charlie: "It wasn’t what I wanted. We had a theater company and a great life where we were."

Nicole: "Was it a great life for you?"

Charlie: "You know, I'm not talking about a great marriage, I'm talking about life in Brooklyn. Professionally. I don’t know, I never considered anything different."

Charlie had given up a prominent position, carrying a responsibility that an E5 does not want to assume, one that presented unknowns and the possibility of failure.

Charlie: "I agreed to send Henry to school here because the pilot was going to become a series, and I thought you'd come back to New York later."

Nicole: "Honey, we never said that. That was your assumption."

Charlie: "Yes, we did!"

Nicole: "When have we said that?"

Charlie: "I don’t know when, but we said it!"

Charlie's inner dialogue is real to him. Nicole is just an internalized object and not a person she relates to.

Nicole: "You're back in your life before you met me. People said you were too selfish to be a great artist, and I defended you. But now I see they were absolutely right. You're a bitch! You've done nothing but manipulate me! You are a fucking demon! Now you're playing the strategy of a victim because it works? But you and I know that you chose this life! The one you laughed at and then didn’t want! You used me so you could leave Los Angeles. I haven’t used you even once!"

Charlie: "Yes, you did, and then you blamed me for it! You always pointed out when I was wrong, when I wasn't good enough. Life with you was grey."

As much as he tries to manipulate his wife, Charlie feels guilty like a child; he is self-centered.

Nicole: "And I have to deal with you forever!"

Charlie: "You're like a goat! And you are winning! Fuck!" He punches the wall to release some emotion. The gesture continues to be just a gesture; it does not give him access to his rage, and he immediately distances himself from it.

Nicole: "Are you kidding me? I wanted to get married. You loved me as much as I loved you."

Charlie: "What does this have to do with Los Angeles? What?"

Nicole: "You're so caught up in your own selfishness that you don't identify it as such anymore. You really are an idiot."

Charlie: "Every day I wake up wishing you were dead! If I could make sure Henry was okay, I'd want you to get sick, then get hit by a car and die!"

Charlie bursts into tears. He cannot handle his aggressiveness or the expression of his rage, as if he were afraid not of hurting but of breaking the love object. He falls to his knees, clutching his legs like a child who comforts himself and doesn't want to be punished.

Charlie: "I'm sorry. I feel this way about myself too."

Interior - Night - Pub

Charlie tells the members of his company, as a vicissitude of the divorce, that the sofa has been taken by his wife; We didn't hear anything personal or confidential from him. "I'm sorry, I feel so whiny and bored, I'm a fool, excuse me." The music plays, a piano playing Stephen Sondheim’s Being Alive, and Charlie walks over to the microphone and begins to sing:

Someone hug you very tight Someone who will hurt you a lot Someone who will steal your chair Someone who takes your sleep away Someone who needs you too much Someone who knows you too well Someone to hold you down

Put you through hell. Be alive, be alive, be alive.

The song was written for a musical about Robert, a man who has separated from his wife and is happy. Other characters dialogue with him. Charlie plays them all in a packed internal dialogue:

Blow out the candles, Robert, and make a wish. Do you wish for something? Do you wish for something?

And what Robert and Charlie hated about the relationship becomes your wish:

Somebody hug me really tight, For someone to hurt me too deeply, For someone to sit in my chair, And ruin my sleep, And give me the knowledge That I am alive.

Someone who needs me too much, Someone who knows me too well, Someone hold me, And put me through hell, And give me strength to be alive.

Make me live, make me live, make me confused, Make fun of me with compliments, Make me feel used. Color my days by Adri. But loneliness is being alone, not being alive.

Someone to suffocate me with their love, Somebody do it. I'll always be there, scared just like you, And together we'll survive.

To be alive, to be alive, To be alive.

Charlie internalizes the pain of the loss, finally understanding the value of the relationship, even what he hated about it. At the end of the film, Charlie accepts a year-long job in Los Angeles so he can be near his son. In the middle of the street, she carries him sleepily in her

arms to the car. Nicole crosses the road, realizing that her shoe is untied. She kneels down and laces it up.

Philip Carey

The book begins with the death of Philip's mother when he is nine years old. His father, a wealthy surgeon, had also passed away just a year earlier. We don't know much about Philip's relationship with his mother—we see him more attached to his wet nurse—but we do know that she had compassion for his foot deformity.

His paternal uncles adopt him. The woman had no children and tries by all means to replace the mother figure. Philip "did not know with what voracious love she loved him," he "loved her because she loved him." As for his father's older brother, the vicar of a small fishing village in Kent, he immediately assumes a cold and distant demeanor.

Philip Carey is a reserved and shy boy who is ashamed of his club foot. He quickly changes moods, going from sorrow to lightheartedness. In his new home, he is alone—there are no children, not even close. He is very controlling: he expresses his anger and the need to become independent from his tutors, but he is calm. He finds ground in his uncle's extensive book collection and takes refuge in the exotic and fantastical stories of the Arabian Nights. The picture of an ES is already outlined: detachment, loneliness, few affections.

Less than a year later, he is sent to an institution to follow in his uncle's footsteps, but his foot makes it difficult for him to adapt. The other children make fun of his malformation, and he isolates himself more and more. He wishes that all of this were a dream and that he could wake up next to his mother. He prays to God to heal his foot, but since his prayers fail, he feels cheated by his uncle and by God.

After years of marginalization, Rose arrives, a colleague who doesn't like her. At first, Philip is too convinced of Rose's friendship to expect anything more from her. She is liked for a short time. Rose is nice to everyone; she takes things as they come and enjoys life. But eventually, he begins to resent that he wants an exclusive connection. And he claims it as a right, having accepted it as a favor.

He is jealous of Rose's confidences with other people, and even though he knows his attitude is unreasonable, he can't help saying nasty things to her. If Rose spends an hour in another room, Philip greets her with a long face when she returns. He's mad at her for a whole day, and he suffers every time Rose doesn't notice his discontent or ignores him on purpose. Not infrequently, although he is aware of his own stupidity, Philip provokes a fight,

and they stop talking for a couple of days. But Philip can't bear to be angry for long, and even when he's convinced she's right, he humbly apologizes to her.

We see the Sexual 5's burning desire for an intimate and exclusive sexual relationship. Philip is bitter; he feels betrayed by his friend. He wants to escape the school environment where he is ashamed of himself, ostracized for his deformity, and now that Rose is no longer his best friend, he doesn't feel special in anyone's eyes. He retaliates by denying others, starting with the institute's tutor, who holds him in high esteem. He convinces the director of his uncles to allow him to leave the center and send him to Germany to study.

In Heidelberg, he lives in a hostel with other students, eager to be abroad. He finds a richer and more open culture, and meeting other people outside his environment opens his vision of the world and of himself. He discovers the feminine universe and its desires. He begins to be restless with his instinctive impulses:

Because he hasn't experienced what the novels taught him, yearning for any experiences of the sort feels ridiculous.

A process of spiritual growth begins for Philip when he confronts two friends he cares about who have different theological views than his. Reflecting hard on religion, he wonders, "Why should one believe in God after all?" and as soon as he says these words, he realizes that he has stopped believing. "And I felt a sudden fear." To go on to experience that "life now seemed like a more exciting adventure."

Philip shows the intellectual independence of E5 and the virtuous side of the iconoclastic attitude of the sexual subtype, which questions the authority of the uncle and the director of the institute. These "secret impulses of his innermost nature" enable him to free himself from "degrading fears." This person, who is so shy and, above all, intimidated by the judgment of others, is profoundly rebellious and, in front of God, can say: "After all, it is not my fault. I can't force myself to believe. If there is a God and he is going to punish me because I honestly don't believe in him, I can't help it."

Philip is still very young, and the process of self-acceptance is now purely intellectual, not self-love. When he finishes his studies and returns to England, he finds a guest at his aunt and uncle's house: Miss Wilkinson, a woman much older than him. At first, Philip decides "that he disliked her profoundly," but then falls under the charm of this mature and free woman and is seduced by her stories of and by her Parisian life.

Miss Wilkinson tells him about her affair with an art student. The desire for this city and the ideal of art take hold of Philip, who plans to be an artist. Between the doubts about the young lady's age and the fear of her uncles' judgment, he tries out his romantic fantasies in

an "embarrassed but gallant" state and manages to seduce Wilkinson and have his first sexual relationship.

In an alternation of guilt and coldness, he quickly loses the desire and idealization of Wilkinson, but not that of being an artist. Because "he felt a strange bitterness, the reality seemed so different from the ideal." The Sexual 5's idealization of romantic love is clear here and how it emphasizes sexual attraction in fantasies.

Directed by his uncle, he begins his apprenticeship as an accountant. In London, he feels alienated and experiences deep loneliness and contempt for the people around him. "Philip felt very differently." He is depressed, isolates himself more and more, is not interested in work, and has no reason to dedicate himself to it. His colleagues keep him at a distance because they consider him a snob, an attitude that is in keeping with his character and compensates for his feeling of shame and inadequacy: "With his habit of evaluating himself according to the esteem that others had for him, he began to despise the qualities that had hitherto seemed to him unimportant."

In the office, he kills time drawing and begins to value his talent for art, which Miss Wilkinson appreciated so much. He dreams of going to Paris to fulfill his desire to be an artist. "His mind was all stuck in the future." Determined to go there, he sells the family jewels, shedding symbols of family affection. In this specific instance, the Sexual 5 is strongly linked to the E7 projection of himself into the future with fantasy and the desire for something other than what he has, which is a perennial dissatisfaction.

Paris will really be the place that allows her to open up to Philip. He appreciates his new friendships, feels in a living place that nourishes him humanly, discovers the world of art, and matures his vision of the world. He meets Cronshaw, a charismatic figure with whom he discusses ethics and the meaning of life: "Go look at those Persian rugs, and one day or another you will have the answer," the poet tells him.

This is how Philip meets Fanny Price, a poor art student as determined as she is lacking in talent, who falls in love with him. When she runs out of money, Fanny commits suicide, leaving Philip shocked and full of remorse for not understanding what was going on.

Now, Philip doesn't question her talent, but he does doubt the possibility of becoming a first-rate artist. As a Sexual 5 afraid of failure and exposure, he understands that determination does not guarantee the achievement of his ideal, which is too high and unattainable, both because of his dubious artistic skills and because he is completely disconnected from his own desires. His way of understanding art is intellectual; it is not filled with affection. He is following someone else's dream.

We have already seen that his mother gave him a look not acknowledging his worth, but offering compassionate love for his malformation. Philip needs to find this recognition elsewhere.

The death of his aunt makes him return to England. He feels that everything he had liked about Paris is losing importance and leaves his artistic career with "a feeling of revulsion."

"Philip was upset that his uncle didn't understand the heroics of his choice." He feels misunderstood. The protagonist here reflects the volatility of the Sexual 5, his ability to change his mind between detachment and dissociation. But he is also a man who tries to grow by freeing himself from the desires and ideas of others.

He decides to study medicine to continue his father's career and moves back to London, with his usual shyness and subsequent disappointment with the medical environment.

Philip gets off to a good start in this new life until he accompanies a friend to a club to help him woo a girl who doesn't reflect Philip's ideals of beauty or culture. He has his gang and falls in love with her. Mildred resembles Fanny Price in that she, precisely because of her lack of passion, alternates between a greenish skin and a dull appearance. Philip believes that attraction and hate can be brought together on a fantasy basis. "She had often thought of falling in love, and there was a scene that she had imagined many times."

In this insistent courtship, without any real emotional involvement, where she keeps a distance that allows him not to enter into deeper intimacy, Philip becomes strongly dependent on her, which is not reciprocal. He begs her to love him. Their courtship is intrusive, with Philip repeatedly showing up at the club where she works and following her to her door to see who she's dating.

"If he had been able to satiate that hunger, he would have been able to free himself from the chains that bound him." Mildred takes advantage of Philip's passion addiction but has an affair with another man and leaves with him to marry.

A heartbroken Philip meets Nora, who treats him sweetly and sisterly. He is fond of her but not in love with her, and yet he sexualizes the relationship. "And because that wish was satisfied, Philip was more serene and accommodating. He felt totally in control of himself." "You were never in love with me," Nora will tell him. "It's not nice to be in love," he replies. The romantic love of Sexual 5s hides more physiological needs; the intimacy he seeks is erotic.

When Mildred's man returns, abandoning her while pregnant and breaking the promise of marriage, Philip immediately breaks up with Nora to be with her. They re-establish a relationship of dependency: he supports her financially and, in order to retain her, introduces her to his friend Harry. He pulls her into his arms, even offering her money,

showing his masochistic side by wanting to show "to what abyss of infamy they were capable of descending." Mildred falls in love with Harry and leaves Philip, who is dismayed but also begins to understand her passion and nature.

Sometimes it amused him that his friends, because his face did not express his emotions very vividly and because he had a rather calm manner, thought him cold, manly, and thoughtful. They considered him reasonable and praised his common sense; but Philip knew that his expression was just an unconsciously assumed mask that had a protective function, like the coloration of butterflies; and for his part, he was amazed at his own weakness of will. It seemed to him that every emotion shook him like a leaf in the wind, and the onslaught of passions found him helpless. He had no control over himself. He seemed to have it only because he was indifferent to many things that agitated others.

Philip takes refuge in his workshop and becomes more and more passionate about his work. One day he bumps into Mildred on the street, who, reduced to poverty, has turned to prostitution to survive. Feeling strong compassion for her, and even more for her little girl, he takes her in as a servant. However, he no longer desires her, no longer a slave to passion. Mildred tries to thank him and only knows how to do it with sex. Philip coldly rejects her, and she destroys the house before fleeing.

Our protagonist befriends Thorpe Athelny, who, hospitalized, is translating The Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross. He begins to frequent the Athelny house, where he finds a lively and warm family that makes him feel accepted. He appreciates their simplicity. Thorpe, who has lived until recently in Toledo, shows Philip the El Greco paintings. For him, it is a great revelation, but not only artistic. Thanks to these works, he discovers more about himself and the souls of others.

"The soul of men painted its strange and burning desires through the eyes: their senses are prodigiously acute, not for sounds, smells, or colors, but for the subtle sensations of the soul." He felt dimly that he was on the threshold of a new vital discovery; a feeling of adventure trembled in him. He thought for a moment of the love that had consumed him; love seemed so futile compared to the excitement churning in his heart.

In a risky stock market investment, he loses all his money. His dying uncle refuses to help him, and Philip even considers killing him for the inheritance but is constrained by remorse, rather than ethics. When his money runs out, he sleeps on the street, unable to ask his friends for help.

After a while, however, he decides to go to the Athelnys, who take him in and immediately find him a job in a department store. To bear the humiliation of his new condition, he finds solace in art. He takes refuge in a museum, and in a room without people, surrounded by the marble ensembles of the Parthenon, he enters into a new consciousness.

"These were things from long ago, centuries and centuries had passed over that unhappiness; for two thousand years, the mourners had been dust like their bereaved loved ones. Yet the sorrow was still alive, filling Philip's heart; he was overwhelmed with compassion."

Philip is finally able to give space to the pain of loss, which opens him to a new feeling and understanding of his past: he is born. Life had no meaning... the man suffers. It seemed that he had freed himself from the last burden of responsibility and dies... completely free... his irrelevance was transformed into strength... the world was stripped of its cruelty... failure had no weight, success was worth nothing. He is free from attachment to the idealization of the self and the world.

"Just as the weaver makes a design with no other pleasure than aesthetics, so a man might live his own life." He understands the meaning of life that the poet Cronshaw spoke of: "By abandoning the desire for happiness, he was abandoning the last of his illusions."

It is here that we see Philip flourish. On the death of his uncle William, he inherits enough money to finish his medical studies, and he realizes that Sally, the oldest of the Athelny daughters, loves him. He still rides with his imagination projecting into the future, but gives in to accept the simple love he feels for her.