For school work

Sunday 5 March 2017

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

I took reference from the movie "Rocky Balboa" for this topic. The conflict I will be describing happened between Rocky and his son, Robert.

Rocky had announced that he was coming out of retirement from boxing to participate in a charity exhibition against the newly crowned undefeated heavyweight champion, Mason "The Line" Dixon". Robert, who had seen the news, decided to talk to his father about his decision.

Robert felt that his father was doing something unnecessary. He expressed his frustration of constantly living in his father's shadow as people would talk about Rocky whenever they saw Robert. He felt that the reason he got a decent job and that people dealt with him was because of his last name. Whenever Robert felt that he was getting a little ahead and something for himself, his father would "mess up his plans". Robert could not make a name for himself due to his father's fame. Robert even pleaded to Rocky to quit the exhibition as he said that it would end up bad for the both of them. It seemed that Robert felt that Rocky would lose the exhibition as his father, who had retired for about twenty years, was up against someone who was currently undefeated. This in turn would hurt Robert due to the embarrassment he would face when people talk to him. Robert had admitted that it was already hurting him when Rocky asked.

Rocky would feel surprised over his son's confession and consequently upset that he had unintentionally hurt his son. He talked about how he felt privileged watching his son grow up to be good and wonderful. Robert "took on the world" when the time came, however things changed. Rocky realised that his son had stopped being himself. When things got hard and people told him that he was not good enough, Robert looked for something to blame. Rocky continued to lecture him about how the world was a harsh place. He advised his son to keep moving forward despite the number of times he had failed. He added on that his son was not a coward who would blame someone else for his own failure, and that he was better than that.

Robert was upset that he was not as successful as he thought he would be. He felt that he was constantly overshadowed by his father's success and blamed his father when things became tough to handle. If you were in Robert's position, how would you feel when Rocky lectured his son?