Literary and Cinematic Examples

Jean-Claude Roman

The book by Emmanuel Carrère, a journalist who followed the tragedy of Jean-Claude Roman, whom he interviewed several times, describes the psychopathology of the Social 5. It is interesting to note that central to Jean-Claude—hiding, not making transparent what he thinks and feels—is common to any type Five, even to the diffuse trait, as well as all his communication. The "as if" is present in his personality, which communicates and pretends something else but never what he really thinks, feels, and lives. These maneuvers naturally remain invisible, hidden, until a confrontation takes place that demands their clarification.

The Social 5 avoids conflicts through indifference, silence, and distance but wishes, while isolating itself, to continue belonging to the group and to be seen and valued in its singularity. It is a character that always tries to hide something out of fear, but, in the end, no longer identifies very well what it is that it is hiding or why. This is the defense mechanism of the Enneatype Five, which has been incorporated into his way of being, in fact not only to hide something but to hide himself, keeping himself invisible, inaccessible, and indecipherable in interpersonal relationships.

The further away from the world, relationships, and intimacy, the more callous and cold the social Five can become. The traits of indifference, insensitivity, and coldness, related to isolation, in pathological cases can lead to psychopathy. And this is exactly the case of Jean-Claude Roman, who lived in the French city of Prèvessin, on the Swiss border, with his wife and children and who continued to lie and hide his other life for ten years from the people around him, especially his family.

When Jean-Claude started getting caught, he made sure the people he loved never knew he was lying and what he was hiding. And so, after achieving the death of his father-in-law, the first person who suspected his deceit, on January 11, 1993, he reached the apex of his pathology. Coldly, with a rifle, he killed his wife and their two children (a seven-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy) just after watching some cartoons with the little ones. He also took the life of his father and mother; thus, none of them would feel disappointed with him, nor would they discover his hidden life, which would undoubtedly be cause for great shame and disappointment. In the end, he took a high dose of barbiturates and set the house on fire, so no one else would find out what he had done. He assumed that an accidental fire in the house of a World Health Organization doctor would be the perfect epilogue to this story.

However, when the firefighters entered the house, they found Jean-Claude still alive and took him to the hospital. He survived. He spent twenty-two years in prison, and during this time, he gave interviews to the author of the book El adversario. Jean-Claude killed his wife, his children, his father-in-law, and his parents for fear of the grave disappointment that discovering his hidden life would cause them. He had posed as a doctor from the World Health Organization (WHO) before the whole world and, supported by that lie, had obtained money from his father-in-law and other family members and friends for financial operations. He claimed that one of the privileges of being an employee of WHO was receiving a higher rate of return on his investments.

With the money entrusted to him for investments, Jean-Claude maintained a good standard of living. He was a good father—patient, attentive, loving, and devoted to his wife. Every day he took his BMW to work, dropped the children off at school, and headed for the Swiss border, just two kilometers from his home. He cleared customs and headed for the WHO,

where his access was limited to the library and conference rooms. From there, he took a lot of letterheads home. He did this every day. He once took his wife and children in front of the WHO, pointed to a window in the building, and said, "There, right there, is Dad's office."

With total indifference to feelings, with self-control and precautions, Jean-Claude managed to live two lives at once. His job at the WHO was a lie. Jean-Claude supposedly left home to go to work, but in reality, he spent hours alone, walking between the WHO library, roadside restaurants, gas stations, or on made-up work—autistic retreat trips. He also walked for many hours in a hotel near the airport, where he stayed in a kind of forest, in silence. He was an active and curious reader.

Jean-Claude was a reserved and intelligent man. The title of Emmanuel Carrère's book, The Adversary, refers to Revelation 12:9, about "he who deceives everyone and the world." The Apocalypse says: “And the great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent called Devil; and Satan, who deceives the whole world, was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.” The cunning adversary is another who lives hidden inside and who lacks feelings and affections; he is alien to himself. It is worth remembering the myth of the Devil, who is the mythological representation of the ego, the one who deceives everyone.

The Social 5, by hiding a secret, locks himself in a tormented solitude. In this way, he isolates himself more and more psychologically, becoming socially inaccessible, even though he remains together, as if on a psychic island. He does not reveal what he keeps or hides behind his closed pride. His feelings close out of fear and shame until they take refuge in a space of coldness, emptiness, and indifference. Jean-Claude sacrificed those he could not let down—wife, children, parents, and father-in-law—for fear of losing their love and becoming nothing. His pride and sense of self-worth wouldn’t take it. The way out he found was to hide everything and make the story disappear, killing those he imagined would not tolerate his failure as a man, father, husband, and son.

In the analysis of the journalist Carrère, for Jean-Claude there was no distinction between him and those he loved: he was part of them and vice versa, in a closed and undifferentiated system without limits. From this arose the hypothesis that, for Jean-Claude, there was no difference between suicide and homicide since he and the people were the same thing—compact and cold—that he could destroy without feeling anything. The absence of feelings leads to psychopathy. However, in this case, what motivated Jean-Claude to kill was the fear of disappointment, the fear of being discovered in his hidden world and, therefore, rejected. Deceiving others involves great fear for this type of character. The person fears being morally annihilated and banished from the social environment, family, friends, and community. This is the underlying sentiment of Jean-Claude Roman. A social Socialist experiences the phobic zone of imminent social disintegration very strongly because he is already exiled from the world but keeps within

himself the desire to belong. There is a fear of disappointing others if they find out that he is not the nice guy, or nice girl, he is trying to pretend to be.

Hiding his secret for years and years, Jean-Claude grew ever darker and darker. The fear of being transparent led him to maintain a social image of an exemplary husband and father of a family. He thought he could get away with it, but his dodgy attitudes led his wife to grow increasingly mistrustful. His cold and psychopathic thinking was consumed by the murders he committed.

Emmanuel Carrère understood that this was a very unusual crime. His interest in the story arose when he realized that Jean-Claude was someone driven by adverse forces. A good, friendly, docile, intelligent, and dedicated gentleman, who harbored forces within himself that surpassed him. Therefore, the journalist decided to write a literary report, which would become a book.

The intent was to enter Jean-Claude's soul, but not like a forensic psychiatrist would, based on a pathological diagnosis. He went further, and as Dostoevsky did in Memories of the Underground with his E5, in this case, the protagonist reveals the pathological dynamics of a social person in El Adversario.

Jean-Claude read a lot throughout his life. An amateur and curious, he had the ability and clarity to write. These are common aspects of the E5, especially the social one, which is presented in a professorial manner and with intellectual superiority. He had a predilection for philosophical essays. He declared himself an agnostic rationalist.

During his time in prison, he became even more fond of reading. He continually analyzed himself, trying to understand what had happened to him, as if he were analyzing another person who did not seem to be him: a flagrant case of pathological psychic dissociation. Later, he dedicated himself to specialized literature, diving especially into Jacques Lacan.

As a typical Social 5, Jean-Claude was socially transparent. He appeared to be what he was not and, at the same time, he lived in fear of being found out and disappointing others. The WHO doctor's mask, with which he put on the face and style of someone important, hid his need to be accepted and valued by his wife and children, family, and friends. His pride did not allow him to be less than a respected doctor, as is common to Social 5s: they feel small and great at the same time, always seeking to appear a certain superiority and importance, often intellectual.

The cunning mind, useful to compartmentalize all his facets and also to deal with two strong personalities inside—one a gentle and generous man, and the other false, conniving, cold, and manipulative in the journey of hiding his secret—drove Jean-Claude insane. Paradoxically, he revealed a true affective side in his family behavior. He always said that

he tried to separate life with his wife and children from the rest. He claimed that he did not want work issues to disturb the home and that his office was free from domestic influences. It was his way of avoiding gathering anyone from the WHO in his house who could reveal the fraud. No one had his phone number, not even his wife. When he "traveled for work," his wife communicated with him through a post office box. His wife even joked about the mystery: "One of these days I'm going to find out that my husband is a spy for the East."

The ability to deceive made Jean-Claude a doctor who was not a doctor. He had the extreme ability to hide his own shame, and, as is common to the Social 5, he showed a compensatory, superior image, hiding what he really felt inside. Instead of studying Business Administration at university, as his family wanted, Jean-Claude became interested in medicine.

The Roman family were country people, established near the Jura forest and the small town of Clairvaux-les-Lacs: austere, hard-working, systematic, and respected people. They worked hard, prayed to God, and cultivated respect for their word as an inviolable commitment. In this family was Jean-Claude, who had read a lot since he was little and was always a year ahead in school. He was known as "the wise boy." He was a kind, educated, calm, and delicate child and young man, excessively restrained and apparently very correct.

Jean-Claude greatly admired his father and, from a very young age, seemed to have incorporated the paternal characteristic of not showing emotion. Through his mother, he learned about the power of pain, a feeling that strongly enveloped him, like an organic disease. To avoid the emotional weight of his mother, he was concerned with learning quickly and anticipating everything that could harm her.

While in other homes there was animation and joy at family gatherings, at the Romans everything in that house exhibited frankness and carried a value with religious weight, withdrawn. But even there, as a precaution, there were certain truths that could not be told, and white lies were used in a hidden way. Jean-Claude learned that he should never disappoint or upset others, nor extol his successes and virtues. That is, you don't have to show anything, just in case.

In his teens, Jean-Claude was interned at Saunier. He lived alone among the boys and girls; he was afraid of women and seemed to live on another planet. His classmates were too quick-witted for the timid Jean-Claude to take well with them, so he spent his days at boarding school in the company of Claude, an imaginary friend. Then, when he grew older, he spent his days isolated near the town of Clairvaux. He didn't talk to anyone but his parents. Before them, who questioned his isolation, he alleged physical problems to hide his existential conflicts of adaptation to the social environment. Melancholic and full of doubts, he hid what he felt. The men of the place met in the town's

cafeteria, except for him. He grew up as a young man with a frail and flabby body. He turned into an adult with the face of a scared child.

On the day of the trial, when questioned about his crime, Jean-Claude restricted his exposition about his wife, citing deep consideration for her, who was dead. His lawyer tried in vain to convince him that he should express some feeling, some emotion, throughout the trial. To do this, he recorded that his client, as a child, talked about his joys and sorrows, but only with his dog, his only confidant. The lawyer tried to get Jean-Claude to express any form of human warmth during the trial since his coldness in the face of the brutal event was shocking.

Hearing the lawyer evoke memories of his childhood, he reacted by saying that he considered it indecent to talk about the bad moments of childhood, heavy secrets that he preferred to keep in silence. Even so, he doubted, but he had no one to confide his emotions to during the interrogation. Romand made it safely to his dog. Saying no to others when he was little, he only showed a docile smile and, in this way, hid his anguish, his sadness, and his many childish and adolescent doubts.

He had come to think that one day he would be able to express part of it. In his conversations with the journalist Carrère, he revealed that his wife was anguished. However, after so much time and so many lies, he no longer knew how to do it. Jean-Claude explained that he lived dominated by the fear of deception, and that was why he lied: the first lie led to another, and this to another... and so on throughout his life.

During the trial, a journalist who followed the sessions commented to Carrère that Jean-Claude had revealed himself to be completely in control of himself and fully aware of everything happening around him: "There was no longer a man there, just a black hole."

Balthazar Claes

From In Search of the Absolute, by Honoré de Balzac.

In Search of the Absolute is a short work by Honoré de Balzac whose main character illustrates the Social 5 personality. It tells the story of Balthazar Claes, a chemist, a disciple of Lavoisier, and a member of a famous family in the Netherlands, the Van Claes. This traditional family was descended from noblemen who, over decades, had amassed a good fortune.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when the story takes place, the Claes family was represented by Balthazar Claes, Count of Nourho. After some vicissitudes, from the immense fortune accumulated by his ancestors, there was still enough income for the count and his family to live as nobles in the small town of Douai. Balthazar owned some land that

brought him a good income and a beautiful house, whose furniture and extensive collection of works of art and rare tulips were still worth a good sum of money.

It is said that Balthazar, as a young man, fell in love with the science that Lavoisier cultivated, becoming his most ardent disciple. After his studies in Paris, Balthazar returned to Douai and, some time later, married Josefina, who was also an heiress to a line of nobles from the Spanish royal house. With her, he had four children: two girls and two boys.

The story begins with the suffering of Josefina due to the absence of Balthazar, who, little by little, has withdrawn from family life and devoted more and more time to the laboratory and his research. On one occasion, Balthazar receives a visit from a chemist friend who urges him to discover "the formula of the absolute," based on the vision of the ancient alchemists, whose objective was the discovery of the philosopher's stone. It would be a unique formula that would translate the essence contained in all the elements.

Thus, based on this equation, it would be possible to transform carbon into diamonds or, as the alchemists would say, transform metal into gold. Balthazar was totally attracted to this ideal and stubbornly devoted himself to "the search for the absolute":

From this irrefutable experience, I deduced the existence of the absolute! A common substance to all creations modified is the sharp and clear position of the problem that the absolute offers, and that it seemed to me that I had to look for.

The description of this character shows us a genius man, endowed with unusual intelligence but also unkempt in appearance:

The deep feelings that animate great men were breathed in that pale face and strongly furrowed by wrinkles [...] But above all in those sparkling eyes, whose fire seemed equally increased by the chastity that tyranny gives of ideas and by the inner focus of a vast intelligence.

The zealous fanaticism inspired by art or science was still betrayed in this man by a singular and constant distraction. The shoes were either not clean, or the laces were missing, the pants of black cloth full of stains, his vest unbuttoned, his tie turned backward, and his green coat always unstitched, completing a fantastic ensemble of small and large things that, in another, would have patented the misery that vices engender, but that in Balthazar Claes, was the negligence of genius.

Balzac's character perfectly fits the descriptions of a Social 5. The author describes him as a patient and contemplative man, with calm passions and careful words:

To a priest, it would have seemed full of God's words.

He goes on to say that an artist would have hailed him as a great teacher, and an enthusiast would have taken him for a seer of the Swedish church, since, indeed, his appearance always evoked an air of mystery and wisdom.

Balthazar was happily married, but his wife, though she suffered greatly from his absence, had no access to what had caused her husband to withdraw almost exclusively to his laboratory. She waited a long time to learn the secret of his work. Every time she tried to bring up the subject or find out the reason for her anguish and detachment, he remained silent:

The moment he was going to speak, he immediately slipped away, left her abruptly, or fell into the abyss of his meditations, from which nothing could get him out.

However, Balthazar's research entailed large expenses in the purchase of components and materials, which came from important laboratories in Paris and other cities in Europe. Little by little, the fortune accumulated by the family began to dwindle, and the debts became larger and larger. But he didn't seem to care, because he only gave his existence a meaning: that of the search for the absolute.

Balthazar's dogged dedication to the search for this secret formula led him to become increasingly disconnected from ordinary life and to forget his ties to those around him. He abandoned his married life and became callous and indifferent to everything he had previously loved.

He despised his blooming tulips and no longer thought of his children. No doubt he was indulging in some passion foreign to the affections of the heart. Love was asleep, not buried.

He was able to come home in the morning, very calm, after having been absent all night, walking down the street or working in his laboratory. He did not even suspect the torture and anguish that his distraction caused in his family.

The professorial tone and expert behavior stand out in this character. Socially, he exposed his knowledge, but never his privacy. It was common for him to ardently defend his ideas and convictions in conversations, the only time he showed any passion. At a social gathering in his living room, Balthazar broke his long silence with the following sentence:

What an abyss for human reason! [He raised his hands and joined them in a desperate gesture.] A combination of hydrogen and oxygen makes appear, by different doses, in the same medium, on the same principle, these colors that each constitute a different result.

Balthazar was driven by a great ambition to be the first to find the matter of the absolute and recreate nature. In a conversation with his wife Josefina, he talks about his dream:

Ethereal matter that evaporates and that is undoubtedly the matter of the absolute. Think, then, that if I am the first, if I find it, I make metals, I make diamonds, I repeat nature.

Here we see a striking characteristic of the Social 5, which is satisfied with the world of ideas, a place of greater importance than affective relationships. His wife, Josefina, at one point defines him like this:

Science is more powerful in you than yourself, and its flight has taken you too high, not to come down again and be the companion of a poor woman.

On one occasion, after insistent requests from his wife, Balthazar decided to leave his studies and return to domestic life. However, he does not seem to find the same interest in anything else that he had when he was dedicated to chemistry. In a passage from the book, Balzac shows us how Balthazar lived, disinterested in ordinary life. His wife always found him sitting and looking at their children.

He read the newspaper attentively, like a withdrawn merchant who doesn't know how to kill time. Then he would get up, look at the sky through the panes, sit down again, and fan the fire, meditative, like a man who knows his movements.

This lack of motivation led him, some time later, to return to experiments in his laboratory. And so, between new attempts and failures, Balthazar consumed a large part of his fortune, which left his wife increasingly anguished. She could not find a way out of her husband's madness and gradually lost her health until she fell seriously ill.

But Balthazar seemed unaware of the ailment that was slowly consuming his wife. In some passages of the book, we observe his disconnection and indifference:

Balthazar returned so distracted that he did not realize the state of illness in which Josefina was.

Another fragment again illustrates the coldness of his character in the face of his wife's situation:

Her husband rarely came to see her. After dinner, he would stay with her for a few hours, but since the patient did not have the strength to hold a long conversation, he would say one or two phrases that were eternally similar, sit down, be silent, and allow an astonishing silence to reign in the room.

In the last moments of his wife's life, a group of friends and religious companions finished the ceremony to give her excommunication. Balthazar, immersed in his laboratory, didn't show up until afterward. Shortly after she dies and, however, Balthazar seems to be little moved by his wife's death, continuing with his investigations in search of the absolute.

The family drama continues, now affecting the descendants of the chemist. Marguerite, the eldest daughter of Balthazar and Josefina, is left in charge of running the family home and taking care of her younger siblings. She must fight against the madness of her father, who pursues his only goal at the expense of the family’s welfare.

After the bankruptcy caused by Balthazar's excessive spending, Marguerite finally manages to take control of the family finances, making her father move to another city and imposing control over his accounts. With no more money to spend on research and, at the same time, unable to appease his obstinate search, in which he found the only meaning of his existence, Balthazar ends up going into debt. Finally, he returns to the house run by his daughter, who heroically manages to rebuild it financially and restore the family name.

During his daughter's wedding, Balthazar is shocked to discover, in his abandoned laboratory, that experiments carried out in the past have produced a small diamond. He continues with them but without causing the same financial damage as in previous years. Three years pass, and he seems to have given up the search for the absolute.

After this period, his daughter decides to spend a long time in Spain with her husband, leaving Balthazar to stay in the house, which is now empty of family members and under the care of employees. He maintains the hope of being able to progress in his studies and experiments in the search for the absolute. However, once again, he fails in his experiments and spends much more than he can afford—an event that forces the return of Marguerite, the only person capable of putting limits on her father's madness.

Her return coincides with an event that leaves Balthazar bedridden, with a paralysis that takes away part of his movement and speech. One day, lying on his bed, Balthazar reads an article in the newspaper about the "Discovery of the Absolute," carried out by another contemporary chemist.

This is how Balzac describes the last moments of the life of Balthazar Claes: "Suddenly, the dying man rose up on his two fists, cast a look on his terrified children that struck them all like lightning. The hair that adorned his neck fluttered, his face was animated with a spirit of fire, a breath passed through that face and became sublime; he raised his hand, clenched with rage, and shouted in a shrill voice the famous word of Archimedes: 'Eureka!' He fell backwards on his bed, with the heavy sound of a lifeless body; he died letting out a fearful moan, and his convulsed eyes expressed, until the moment the

doctor closed them, the sorrow of not having been able to give science the word of an enigma whose veil had been torn belatedly, under the bare fingers of death."

Charles Darwin

Of Creation: Darwin's Dilemma, by Jon Amiel (2009)

Creation is a film that recreates the mental and moral torments of Charles Darwin. His major work, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, was a landmark in science. The film reveals a Darwin torn between his scientific convictions and the fear of offending the Christian faith and religion.

A typical man of his time, Darwin came from a family with a strong Christian tradition. He married Emma, his first cousin, with whom he had ten children. An important point in the narrative is his relationship with his daughter Annie, who died prematurely at the age of ten and appears throughout the film in imaginary dialogues with Darwin, in a kind of "scientific consciousness," fulfilling the symbolic function of representing science and revealing his unconscious.

The dramatic knot is the conflict between Darwin's scientific conviction, imprisoned in a chest that he does not dare to open, and the Christian faith fueled by the pressure of the environment and the time in which he lived. Only after a prolonged struggle does Darwin dare to open this chest, full of knowledge and research accumulated there, to give definitive shape to his revolutionary work.

The film opens with Charles Darwin's daughter asking him to tell her a story while a photograph is taken of her. Darwin tells her about one of his trips to Tierra del Fuego. Then she asks about the photographs being taken, and Darwin gives her a new explanation. We see the special relationship between Darwin and his eldest daughter, for whom he is very fond—a relationship marked by their shared interest in science and knowledge.

In a time jump after this dialogue with his daughter, we see Darwin having dinner with his family, clearly depressed after Annie's death. He carries a strong guilt for her death, for having married his first-degree cousin. We know Darwin was very interested in studying the negative effects of consanguinity. In addition to this guilt, Darwin also experiences the conflict between science and religion. Between one thing and another, the film takes place in an air of sadness and pain, a reflection of Darwin's psychic atmosphere, very similar to the apathetic and gray inner world of Social 5.

Darwin is visited by two friends who are interested in his work. At first, he tries to hide, but he ends up receiving them. One of them tries to convince him that he needs to finish his book faster, as it will be very important for science. However, Darwin then argues that he

does not have any books, only fragments that are not ready to be published. The friend replies that he has read the summary and that it has very powerful arguments. But Darwin insists that his book is not complete and that he needs much more time to finish it. In the end, Darwin claims that his theory has killed God.

We see here some features of the Social 5, which walks between guilt and fear, between postponement and paralysis, between concealment and avoidance. He tends to believe that he is never ready enough. He needs more time to prepare, to go deeper, in an attempt to extract all the knowledge from his scientific investigations. Although the gaze of others recognizes him as special, he always struggles with insecurity and fear of exposing himself, postponing himself and his work.

After this visit, Darwin goes to his room, where he begins a dialogue with his already dead daughter. These dialogues, which occur in his imagination in so many moments of the film, allow us to know his thoughts, feelings, and memories—always lived internally, in a kind of split with reality.

In one of these memories, Darwin is in a room with his wife, watching their daughter in a cradle. At each expression of the baby, he notes it in a notebook, gathering information for what will become a treatise on child development.

This character is passionate about knowledge, and through his scientific interest, he tries to have a relationship with the world. He transforms a moment of contact with his daughter into a possibility of study to gain more knowledge. Through this knowledge, he maintains the affective bond with his daughter and elaborates his grief.

Darwin is taking a walk with family and friends in the countryside. We see his passion for teaching, typical of the Social 5 Enneatype. Between scientific explanations and demonstrations of his extensive knowledge, he begins a discussion with the Reverend about the meaning of things and the way faith and science perceive them. A large part of the universe of the Social 5 is occupied by a thirst for knowledge, and in the social sphere, knowledge represents their passport to belonging.

In another scene, Darwin's wife tells stories to their children at night before they sleep. Darwin is hiding, listening at the entrance to the room. A daughter asks about the father and why he is not with them to see them off. They believe that, after the death of their older sister, Darwin has stopped disliking them. The mother explains that the father is tired, while Darwin, who hears everything, makes no move to contact them.

Here, we see a distant Darwin who cultivates an attitude of isolation and disinterest in relationships, traits of the social Type 1. Guilt is also strong in this personality, which, faced

with a constantly frustrated idealization, suffers from intense self-demand and self-devaluation.

Darwin is in his room, looking at the writing in his book, when he begins another dialogue with his deceased daughter. She asks him what he is afraid of, and he replies that his theory will change how people think about God's plans and that it could break his wife's heart. At one point, he admits he feels at war with God. In truth, he is in a silent battle with himself. The death of his daughter was the catalyst the Totem of Science needed to replace the Totem of Faith.

The guilt Darwin feels for the death of his daughter is part of this drama. At some point, his daughter asks why he doesn’t share his feelings with his wife. His wife opens the door and sees Darwin talking to himself, with no one in the room. When she asks if he is okay, Darwin hides his anguish and remains silent.

Darwin’s isolation is profound. It reminds us of the lack of trust in human relationships typical of the social Type, who does not share their private world and hides conflicts and feelings. After all, they do not trust that they can receive help.

Darwin remains tormented when he receives a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, who has independently reached the same conclusions as him, expressed in a short article barely twenty pages long. Darwin decides to give up. He is deeply frustrated, having written more than 250 pages over more than twenty years of research that remains unfinished.

Often, he cannot find the strength to continue, walking alongside negativity and a sense of failure. In moments of anger, he tends to give up and abandon projects, employing detachment as a strategy to deal with conflict.

All the conflict Darwin experiences makes him ill. After a trip for treatment, Darwin returns home and finds the strength to talk to his wife about his guilt. He confesses the projection he imposes on her, believing that she blames him for their daughter's death. His wife reassures him that this is not the case. From this conversation, Darwin draws the strength to continue and finish his work.

Isaac Borg

From Wild Strawberries, by Ingmar Bergman (1957)

The film begins with a very comprehensive preamble. "Distinguished Professor" Isak Borg receives a prestigious academic award and must travel to collect it. However, the day begins with a nightmare that foreshadows that the trip will also be a journey through his

existence: emptiness, indifference, and a lack of life. His daughter-in-law Marianne offers to accompany him on the trip.

During the journey, Marianne tells her father-in-law what she thinks of him. She reproaches him for being stingy with her husband, Evald, and for his lack of sensitivity. She reminds him of times when he refused to help them and his indifference: "You only listened to yourself." The old man seems to focus solely on a financial debt his son owes, entirely forgetting his refusal to offer support. Marianne’s words hit him like a sudden blow that catches him off guard.

A detour in the itinerary takes them to the house where Isak lived for twenty years with his nine siblings, and the old man allows himself to be swept up by memories. A journey through time begins.

He sees his cousin Sara, whom he once loved, picking strawberries for his Uncle Aaron. Suddenly, a young woman who strongly resembles Sara (played by the same actress) and her two friends hitchhike and ask Isak for a ride. He agrees, and the car resumes its journey. Along the way, they visit the house of Isak's mother, who is over ninety years old. The old woman is cold and detached toward her son. Even when she shows Isak old toys and photographs, she does not allow any emotional connection.

After the brief visit, Marianne and Isak continue their journey. While Marianne drives, Isak falls asleep and has a new nightmare.

His cousin Sara forces him to look at his aged face in a mirror and shows him how unaware he is of how he has led his life and of all he has lost. Isak cannot bear the pain Sara’s words cause him and wishes he could neither hear nor see them, retreating into emotional blindness.

In another nightmare, Isak is taken to a classroom to take a test. A strict teacher questions him, labeling him incompetent—not in medicine, but as a human being.

Isak is forced to examine himself through a microscope, facing his coldness toward patients and indifference to his wife's feelings. The professor accuses him of selfishness and misunderstanding and sentences him to loneliness.

When Isak wakes, he tells Marianne, "I'm dead—even though I'm alive," and Marianne confesses that her relationship with her husband is difficult and that he does not want the child she is expecting.

The journey concludes as Marianne and Isak arrive at Evald's house, where they find the housekeeper who has arrived by plane. The ceremony begins with trumpet blasts and the

ringing of bells, recalling the Totems to which Isak has devoted his life. Meanwhile, Isak, sensing a change within himself, decides to write about the day's experience.

During the evening, Isak treats the housekeeper kindly, tries to reconcile his daughter-in-law with his son, bids farewell to the girls he traveled with, and manages to whisper, "Write to me sometime." When he falls asleep, he recalls happy moments from his childhood and envisions his parents before him—a symbol of how he can reclaim his lost humanity by addressing the needs of his inner child.