Cast Away Evaluation

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Cast Away Evaluation

After watching and evaluating the Castaway in conjunction with communication skills, I have better understood the concepts and models we learned in class concerning interpersonal communication. To start with, Castaway offers a better understanding of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs via the progression of Chuck Nolan’s evolution on the island. This film involves all the Maslow’s ideas on the processing of meeting basic needs, from the impulse to find food to the need to make friends and create safety. The principle of meeting self-actualization needs is seen in Chuck’s cave paintings and drawings, which use spontaneity and creativity (Meralda, 2021). The need to meet safety needs is demonstrated when Chuck struggles to find and construct a shelter to protect himself from predators and elements on the island. In addition, the need for self-esteem and gaining respect from others is demonstrated in the film when Chuck makes fire and creates a boat intending to leave the island.

Interpersonal communication plays a vital role in our lives. Interpersonal communication teaches us how to communicate with diverse groups and allows us to adjust to different cultures and circumstances. In Cast Away, interpersonal communication is demonstrated when Chuck Nolan tries to communicate with his surrounding through his senses. This way, Chuck creates an attachment to his surroundings. Chuck often wrote many messages on the sand asking for help. Even though the communication between Chuck and nature was not personal, through his communication with Wilson, he tried to show all his emotions, including frustration, anger, and restlessness. Chuck Nolan had direct communication with nature and Wilson since social technology was unavailable.

The movie Cast Away demonstrates several instances where both verbal and nonverbal communication has been used. The communication in this movie comes from nonverbal, failed, and effective listening. Nonverbal communication is expressed through a person’s gestures, facial expressions, and body language. In Cast Away movie nonverbal communication is demonstrated through Chuck Nolan’s reactions. By looking at Chuck’s facial expressions and how he conducted himself, someone could undoubtedly tell when he was uncomfortable in a situation. For example, when his friend Stan was talking to another person about his wife being very sick, Chuck showed an expression of discomfort by turning away and detaching himself from listening to his friend. Even though Chuck did not know what to say, his facial expressions showed it all. Besides, nonverbal communication was shown through Chuck’s eyes which showed pain and discomfort every time he was in pain or hurt.

Human isolation increases the risk of mental and physical health problems. Cast Away is a dramatic reminder of human isolation, its consequences, and why humans are not supposed to be isolated. Cast Away shows how humans can do whatever it takes to connect with their kind to the stage of projecting their life on the inanimate (Charney, 2020). We see how Chuck becomes isolated after surviving a plane crash and how his psyche slowly deteriorates, proving the negative impact of isolation on humans. Without human interaction, an individual may start doing strange things to deal with loneliness. In Cast Away, Chuck copes with isolation by befriending Wilson. Chuck tries to fill the void left by the lack of human contact through his arguments and conversations. However, through his isolation, Chuck realizes that regardless of what happens in our lives, the only thing that we will always control is how we respond to situations.

Self-disclosure is the process of sharing personal information. There are two distinct types of self-disclosure; verbal and nonverbal disclosure. By telling others about our feelings, thoughts, hopes, ambitions, and fears, we self-disclose verbally. Cast Away is a significant illustration of verbal disclosure. In the movie, we see Chuck Nolan expressing his feelings to Wilson, an inanimate object he had created. Chuck tried to show all his emotions, including frustration, anger, and restlessness, through his communication with Wilson. Chuck used to share his feelings with Wilson even though he knew that Wilson would never reciprocate. Chuck found peace in holding conversations with Wilson, which kept him moving.

According to Harvey (2020), a self-fulfilling prophecy, also referred to as the interpersonal expectancy effect, is a phenomenon through which an initial false expectation leads to its confirmation. Cast Away movie can be understood as a significant part of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The movie demonstrates a self-fulfilling prophecy by showing how Chuck Nolan believed he could make it back home. On the Island, Chuck tried as much as possible to ensure that he would survive and go back to meet the love of his life. At the film’s end, Chuck’s wish to reunite with Kelly is shown, thus proving a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Reflected appraisal describes an individual’s perception of how other people view them. Through reflected appraisal, people think about themselves in the way they think other people think about them. After people realized that Chuck had survived the plane crash, they viewed him as a strong person, making Chuck believe that he was indeed a strong person. In Cast Away, Kelly believed that Chuck was still alive even though her family and friends convinced her to move on with her life since they believed that Chuck was dead. This connects with Chuck’s struggles for surviving on the island since he knew that he had to survive so that he could someday reunite with the love of his life.

The transactional model of communication is a type of communication that shows that the way we communicate with each other changes over time due to newly gathered experiences (Barnlund, 2017). For example, if we meet a new person, we are not always personal with them, but after some time, we get comfortable around them and feel free to have open conversations with them, thus leading to more intimate subjects. However, in Cast Away transactional model is shown oppositely. At the film’s beginning, Chuck and his wife are very intimate. However, after four years of Chuck’s disappearance from the island, their communication is negatively impacted, and they do not have a chance to express their true feelings.

Perception is the process of choosing, organizing, and evaluating information from our senses. Human perception affects our communication since we all respond to stimuli differently. Through our perceptions, we focus on certain sights, touches, tastes, smells, or sounds in our environment. In Cast Away, the concept of human perception is shown in Chuck’s attention to Wilson since, according to him, Wilson is noticeable and significant. When Chuck felt anger and frustration, he could communicate with Wilson since he viewed him as the only person he could talk to.

References

Barnlund, D. C. (2017). A transactional model of communication. In Communication theory (pp. 47-57). Routledge.

Charney, J. P. (2020, May 26). “castaway” - covid-19 and the need for connection. Medium. Retrieved November 2, 2022, from https://josephcharney.medium.com/castaway-covid-19-and-the-need-for-connection-79e58c07399f

Harvey, K. (2022). A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq. Oxford University Press.

Meralda, D. (2021). The main character analysis of cast away movie using hierarchy of human needs of Abraham Maslow’s theory (Doctoral dissertation, KODEPT043131# SekolahTinggiBahasaAsingJIA).