Societal Impacts on Emotional Stability in Literature.
Change is one of the hardest things that human beings have to suffer through, because with change comes anxieties, uneasiness, and the disappearance of a comfort zone that one has become accustomed to. Most humans experience a change in their lives and lifestyles, whether it is tragic or trivial. Usually, that change ultimately stems from social, cultural, economic, or historical influences. In the past two centuries, societal influences have made humans more aware of what society is capable of, increasing not only awareness but also fear, inducing in many people feelings of hostility and even insanity as they lose control to the external cultural forces that have changed their lives. This fear is different as you travel across the world; Eastern and Western outlooks have different views on the world and the meaning of life, making anxieties about the modernization of the world different, yet strikingly similar in their origins. .
Western societies base most of their ideals on emotional stability and creating intimate bonds with others. Hiroshima, Mon Amour, although it takes place in Japan, focuses on the Western values of conscious attentiveness and love at an individual level, as opposed to the non-Western view of society as a whole being, averting focus from the self-fulfillment to the idea of satisfying the society in which one resides. The death of the main female character's German lover, merged with feelings of angst and resentment towards her family for not accepting her choice, led her to suffer from an identity crisis because it was difficult for her to define herself as a woman without the presence of her lover. Society had changed with WWII and the bombing of Hiroshima. Because France was at war with Germany, and she, a French native, was in love with a German soldier, it was socially unacceptable to be in love with the enemy, just as it was socially unacceptable for her to be in love with a Japanese man after the bombing of Hiroshima.
