Grace in the American drama "Undoing" is a winner in life, with a prominent family background, beautiful and intellectual, and her husband Jonathan is a perfect children's doctor, with superb medical skills, full of love, and a lot of income. The son attended an aristocratic school in the upper class.
However, the appearance and mysterious death of her husband's lover seem to have opened up another side of Jonathan's personality...
Life A Side: The Husband Grace Sees
Grace does not want to believe that her husband Jonathan is a murderer.
My husband is a children's doctor. He is usually very caring for sick children in the hospital. Even when a child dies, my husband will go to the funeral in mourning.
The husband is very kind. He accidentally caused the death of a dog when he was a child, and he is reluctant to keep a dog until he is an adult.
Usually she and her husband are very affectionate, they talk about everything, and he always gives her a lot of hospitality and sweet words.
The husband has a high income and sends the children to attend aristocratic schools, but when he attends charity gala, he always has a clear stream, and there is no trace of the vulgarity of the upper class.
How could such a person become a murderer?
He may have had an affair with the dead Elena, but she must have seduced him. She saw that he was rich and that he saved her child, so she pestered him to have a relationship with him, and then asked him to pay for her child to go to an aristocratic middle school.
The B-Side of Life: Jonathan as the Beholder Sees
Grace went to the hospital where Jonathan was working and asked his colleagues for confirmation.
However, a colleague told her another story: Jonathan's display of compassion and kindness seemed to be just a temptation for people, enticing patients and family members to admire the doctor's superb skills and to be impressed by his charisma. Grace's father seemed to have foresight from the beginning, and asked Grace to find a lawyer to protect herself when the murder happened.
It turned out that Jonathan had secretly borrowed money from him, asking for $500,000 from his father-in-law in the name of paying his children's school fees. Of course, the money was spent on the lover's children.
Grace still hired a lawyer to release Jonathan on bail.
Lawyers are keenly aware that you're very good at liking people, aren't you? Then let's go on TV together, show your innocent appearance, and take the lead in public opinion.
All this makes one have to wonder, what is the real Jonathan like? Was Grace's happy life before he acted it out?
performative personality
In psychology there is a type of performative personality, which is expressive, tends to dramatize or legendary any situation, and strives to be eye-catching, engaging, and impressive.
Such people strive to form relationship alliances with others, but only if they are at the center of the group, and the roles of others are merely attentive spectators.
Just like Jonathan in the hospital, he worked hard to do surgery and interact with children. What he needs is not really helping others, but needing sick children to respect him as a loving father, and parents to worship him as a savior. He is keen to engage in such interactions because he needs the constant approval and appreciation shown by others.
And what is his true heart like?
People with performative personalities are always concerned about their own inadequacy and fear of being abandoned, so they display a compensatory self-image: charismatic, memorable, and attention-grabbing.
There is a detail in the play, the court sentenced Jonathan to need $2 million bail to be released, and Jonathan could not come up with that much money. The lawyer said, as a person in the upper class, it shouldn't be a problem to ask your family for the 2 million yuan, right? Jonathan's eyes flashed with loneliness, saying he was estranged from his family. Thinking back to the story of raising a dog when he was a child, he accidentally caused the death of the dog and never raised a dog again. Was he harshly blamed for this in his childhood?
If you try to understand from the early development of people, you will find that the performative personality is very much in need of attention. His belief assumption is: if I am not the focus of others' attention, I will be doomed to be rejected or abandoned. This bad pattern stems from his need to be loved, guided, and recognized.
To compensate for this pre-existing trauma and impaired attachment, he developed a manipulative strategy of impressing people through charisma, dramatic behavior, and even sexual seduction, in an effort to gain the approval and attention of others.
Of course, he often experiences inner turmoil, anxiety and unease, because he is afraid of being rejected. When frustrated, his emotions quickly turn to anger or sadness, and through crying, aggression, and impulsive suicidal behavior, he coerces others into submission all at once. .
Looking at it this way, maybe the murderer is really Jonathan.
conspiracy of husband and wife
Here's a question: As a psychologist with 20 years of experience, can't Grace see Jonathan's problem?
Jin Runjiang believes that this should be a "conspiracy" between her and Jonathan .
In the conversation between Grace and her father: I just want the same loving husband and wife relationship as you and my mother, why can't I get it? Why is Jonathan such a person I don't know? The father replied: Jonathan played a perfect man because you told him what you thought was perfect.
That is to say, in the marriage of Jonathan and Grace, Jonathan needs to be perfect in order to get the attention and love of the important people in his life, which is his behavior pattern; and Grace has always longed for the perfect love of his parents. Love the mother, the mother is elegant and intellectual, and raise the children together.
Because of this demand, they "tacitly" formed a beautiful marriage as beautiful as soap bubbles.
Grace may not know the truth. When Elena's husband found her and wanted to tell her about Elena, Grace very rudely asked him to leave, not wanting to listen at all.
Maybe she knew it for a long time, but she just didn't want to face it and break it.
Grace's life is perfect, but the phantom will eventually be shattered.
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