This Is England: The Frailty Of Fatherhood
‘This is England’: The Frailty of Fatherhood
Introduction
The 2006 British film, This is England, directed by Shane Meadows, is a story about a young boy named Shaun Fields that looses his father through war. In the film, Shaun journey through dealing with the grief of his father’s death and being a victim of bullying leads him to befriending a group of skinheads. The leader of the group, Woody, becomes a “big brother” to Shaun and finds belonging amongst them. Later, Combo, an older member of their group rejoins their gang after being in prison for the past three years and their group divides. Shaun ends up being drawn to Combo’s character and they enter in a “father-son” type of relationship, however, this relationship ends after Shaun witnesses the violence of …show more content…
Thus, Combo’s aggression and brokenness is, perhaps, a result of strife in his own family and childhood. Although he does not speak about his father directly, I suggest that his emotional difficulties might be better by doing so. Combo has trauma and he hasn’t worked through it so he brings his trauma onto others (i.e. Milky and Shaun). When we don’t work through our trauma we express it through symptoms. Trauma disrupts our sense of security and threatens the hope for our future. In this scene, Combo is able to identify with Shaun’s childhood trauma because he is haunted by past traumas. Herman explains often that adults who live through traumatic childhood events are constantly “driven by the hunger for protection and care” and “the fear of abandonment” (1997, 111), thus I suggest that Combo’s words were driven from a similar place. His fear of abandonment and his hunger for protection and care from an unfortunate childhood is projected onto Shaun allowing Combo to use Shaun to recreate a childhood through becoming a father figure to Shaun and being the father he never
Introduction
The 2006 British film, This is England, directed by Shane Meadows, is a story about a young boy named Shaun Fields that looses his father through war. In the film, Shaun journey through dealing with the grief of his father’s death and being a victim of bullying leads him to befriending a group of skinheads. The leader of the group, Woody, becomes a “big brother” to Shaun and finds belonging amongst them. Later, Combo, an older member of their group rejoins their gang after being in prison for the past three years and their group divides. Shaun ends up being drawn to Combo’s character and they enter in a “father-son” type of relationship, however, this relationship ends after Shaun witnesses the violence of …show more content…
Thus, Combo’s aggression and brokenness is, perhaps, a result of strife in his own family and childhood. Although he does not speak about his father directly, I suggest that his emotional difficulties might be better by doing so. Combo has trauma and he hasn’t worked through it so he brings his trauma onto others (i.e. Milky and Shaun). When we don’t work through our trauma we express it through symptoms. Trauma disrupts our sense of security and threatens the hope for our future. In this scene, Combo is able to identify with Shaun’s childhood trauma because he is haunted by past traumas. Herman explains often that adults who live through traumatic childhood events are constantly “driven by the hunger for protection and care” and “the fear of abandonment” (1997, 111), thus I suggest that Combo’s words were driven from a similar place. His fear of abandonment and his hunger for protection and care from an unfortunate childhood is projected onto Shaun allowing Combo to use Shaun to recreate a childhood through becoming a father figure to Shaun and being the father he never