The Self

Daughter of Chaucer. Clementine Kruczynski / Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind) manip, digital print. 4 March 2009.  Online Image. Flikr 21 February 2010.

Question #1. Is there a self that I can control? Everyone is capable of controlling ones self. It is important that people realize that you have control over the decisions that you make. There are some cases where a mental problem will keep someone from making certain decisions. People need to realize that they have to power to make decision. 

Question #2. What forces shape our sense of self? The different situations and the people that you are around play a major role in shaping our sense of self. People can act different around certain people, therefore some people have many versions of the self. This can be a problem because if you are pretending to be more than one person you could hurt other people. 

Question #1. The film begins with the end of the film. It starts off with joel waking up after he has already gone through the whole mind erasing. This is important because the audience doesn't really know that it is after the fact until the end. He woke up in fear and that shows the audience that he is fearful after everything that has happened to him. 

Question #2. What was the central conflict of the film? The central conflict was that joel and clementine both wanted to have each other erased from their mind, but through the process they realize that they really don't want it to happen. Through Joel's mind erasing process he is trying as hard as he can to not forget everything that he had with clementine.