American Beauty: Analysis of Lester Burnham

Introduction to the Analysis of Lester Burnham When I was told to choose a movie to perform a psychoanalysis on a character. I did not know what movie to choose. After watching the two hour long film on the multiple characters that seemed to be struggling to find their inner happiness: American Beauty. I knew that I should not look any further. One character that especially stood out was, Lester Burnham. A forty-two year old father with a mid-life crisis. In the film, American Beauty Lester Burnham is portrayed as an ordinary man, with a perfect life, but of course that is far from the truth. From the outside, Lester seems to have a perfect salary, and a perfect family who lives in a perfect neighborhood. In reality, things are not what they seem to be. In fact, he is on the verge of getting fired from this job, his wife and only child hate him, and he also hates himself. Slowly a series of crises begin to occur that ensure that eventually the family will be destroyed. It starts off with the deterioration of his relationship with, his daughter Jane, and wife Carolyn. “She wasn't always like this. She used to be happy. We used to be happy.”(Cohen, & Mendes, 1999) Everyday is different in his life, but also the same. He goes to work and comes home only to have dinner with the same music and same people who despise him the most. Not to mention how every dinner ends the same, with personal attacks towards him, only to make him feel worse about himself. The worst part is that he knows he is going to do the same tomorrow. As things seem to escalate more and more it is becoming more obvious that he has reached his mid-life crisis. Especially when he meets Angela, his daughters attractive best friend, he thinks he has finally found a new purpose for living. This is when Burnham has reached a critical point in his life. This film revolves around many ideas and themes. One of these is the value of life. “I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is,

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