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Perhaps more than any other country, the United States seems to have many authors who devote themselves to novels of the difficulty of maturing and attaining adulthood in this land of purported equality and democracy. Perhaps this literary concentration exists because the United States is a nation of immigrants who brought with them differing religions, ethnic customs, and political and social beliefs that have been twisted into a fabric of dubious homogeneity in order to attain a consistent consensus that can be recognized as to what constitutes an American. Certainly it is never quite clear what are the exact social and monetary requirements to pass into the power play segment of American society. This lack of clarity perhaps provides confusion and stress for bright, intelligent, American youths who want to enter into the adult world, but who are fearful because of their childhood and adolescent negative experiences that indicate the adult world is not "all what's it cooked up to be." Thus, they hesitate to enter it in a wholehearted manner since it might mean compromising their ethics, their morals, and yes-even their innocence. As a result, these heroes rebel and roil at their predicament and the unjustness of the "real world" which is any human's natural destiny. Two such eminent literary heroes immediately come to mind who fit this criteria-Holden Caulfield of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Alex Portnoy of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1969).
I would suggest that Good Will Hunting is a film version of the novels by Salinger and Roth. Written by the co-stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck-actually begun as a 50 page script by Damon for a screenwriting class at Harvard-he had two semesters to go for his degree-it grippingly details the struggle of Will Hunting, a foster-home orphan in South Boston, to discover how to orient himself into the adult world and how to maximize his immense intellectual talent-he is a genius-in the real world (Anson and Giles 96).
Instead of exploiting his immense intellectual talent, Will belongs to the blue-collar world, laboring in construction or mopping floors as a janitor at MIT. He spends time "hanging around with his buddies, Chuckie (Ben Affleck), Morgan (Casey Affleck) and Billy (Cole Hauser), cheering on...