American film ‘History of a nun’ by Audrey Hepburn
Introduction
"History of a nun" is an American film of 1959, starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch as main papers.
This film takes place in Europe, specifically in a monastery in Belgium, where the young Gabrielle will begin her career as a nun, in the historical framework of World War II between 1939-1945.
Gabrielle, decides to enter a convent in the face of his father’s opinion, a well -known doctor called van der bad. Once inside, an initiation and preparation process begins with the Christian life. At the beginning the penance is hard and considers several times to be there, but persists, since its only mission is to work as a nurse in the Missions of the Congo.
For several years, the young woman, named as Sor Lucas, discussed several issues to become a good nun although she was not very convinced of them such as pride, chastity, obedience, poverty, silence ..
After an exam, three of the sisters are destined for Congo and for the disappointment of sister Lucas, she is destined for a psychiatric, to test her to proof her humility. Once there, Sor Lucas lived a traumatic experience, one of the patients admitted, asked him for a favor and is without thinking offered him his help. When the sister opened the cell where the patient was, she hit her in order to snatch her keys and escape. Days later she was ordered to Congo with the other companions.
When he arrived at Congo, Sister Lucas was very happy, since her mission was to work as a nurse in a hospital with people of color, but it was not so, she had assigned to work helping a famous and prestigious doctor named Fortunati in a hospital of people of peopleWhite breed. Lucas played an amazing role as a nurse, showed an impeccable attitude despite the doctor’s restrictions. The doctor’s goal was for the sister to leave her habits, thus preventing her from leaving when she was working. While working, she was sent to a leper jungle where she gets sick with tuberculosis, but this is when the doctor offers her help and intends to cure her.
At the same time in Europe, World War II explodes. As Sor Lucas had worked as a good nurse and had done an excellent job, they see her trained to send her to Europe again despite the total disagreement she experiences. One day, working at the hospital, receives a letter from his brother, which opens with great impatience and despair. As expected, bad news approached that letter, his father had died at the hands of German soldiers. Faced with such spite, sister Lucas rethinks to follow her path of God. After several days of frustration he decides to leave, he could not save the lives of those who had killed his father.
The other sisters of the convent are willing to mediate with sister Lucas so that she did not abandon her role as a nun, but after several interventions, Lucas decides to abandon and face her principles.
Developing
In the movie we can see with the naked eye the four main themes that it deals. Gender, Church, War and Medicine. Next we will talk about them.
- Nursing and gender: Nursing, since its inception, has been influenced by gender considerations as it is seen as an eminently feminine activity. Eight out of ten women are nurses. Nursing is associated with the characteristics of female role conditioned by their social being. It agrees that the concept "gender" means how each society conceives being a man, woman and the form of relationship between the two. At present, in which we should have overcome sexist roles, we see that in various ways it continues to marginalize the profession and giving a devalued image of the activities carried out by nurses, despite the social importance of their work. In the film we can see how all nurses are women, without distinction.
- Nursing and religion: In this film the influence of the religious in the nursing can be observed with the naked eye. Normally before having a nurse vocation it was more important to have her religious. During the long period in which nursing was associated with the religious world, the contents of professional morals had a strong influence of the predominant confession in each country. This religious component has been present long after religious orders stopped monopolizing nursing care.
- Nursing and War: When there have been wars, the help of health personnel is needed to attend to their injuries and therefore there has been a huge increase in nurses especially in military hospitals. The women of the Western countries took the initiative to face the war and take an active part in it (5). They did it in a diverse way in which human beings face problems: in the difficult daily life of the return of the soldiers, supporting all the effort of family support, or collaborating in the work production for civil and military life (5).
- Nursing and Medicine: When the friends and family of admitted users want to recognize nurses do not give them the importance or role they deserve and see them as the doctor’s assistants. Nursing as a profession has the mission of providing care to patients through quality care based on knowledge, professional skill, warmth, successful reasoning and application of judgments, demonstrating responsibility in their work in order to satisfy the patient(6). Nowadays both professions are equally worthy, but in the film we can see how the role of the doctor takes the man and the role of nurse women, in this case nuns.
conclusion
Due to the great evolution of the human being and to the culture in general, a lot of the ideological schemes to which the nursing was subjected have been broken.
This film has surprised me regarding the religious sphere, although it would not agree with their principles, the nuns had to do what they would send them, such as the great silence, confess in public or simply act in a way that they did not want.
In turn, when sister Lucas is sent to Congo, the dominance of the white race over the black is still appreciated, having a great social exclusion over these.
It also has an important role in this film the superiority of men about women, as we can see in some scenes in which Dr. Fortunati and Sor Lucas appear.
Similarly, it is also important.
There is still a way to go, since the nurse profession is still not valued as it deserves, but over time we have improved in many aspects.
Bibliography
- Ana Mª García Bañón, Ana Sainz Otero, Manuel Botella Rodríguez. Nursing seen from the genre [Internet]. Nursing Index [Internet]. [Accessed 5 Mar 2004]. Available at: http: // scielo.ISCIII.It is/scielo.PHP?script = sci_arttext & pid = s1132-129620040002009
- Mª Esther Fajardo Trasobares, Concha Germán Bes. Influence of gender in the recognition of visible and invisible nursing care [Internet]. Nursing Index [Internet]. [Consulted APR 2004]. Available at: http: // scielo.ISCIII.It is/scielo.PHP?script = sci_arttext & pid = s1132-129620040002002
- Concha Germán Bés. Gender and Nursing [Internet]. Nursing Index [Internet]. [Accessed 7 Aug 2004]. Available at: http: // scielo.ISCIII.It is/scielo.PHP?script = sci_arttext & pid = s1132-129620040002001
- Yo.M. Neighborhood, a. Molina, c.M. Sánchez, m. L. Help you. Nursing ethics and new challenges [Internet]. [Accessed 2006]. Available at: http: // scielo.ISCIII.It is/scielo.PHP?PID = S1137-66272006000600005 & script = sci_arttext & tlng = pt#back
- Monserrat Huguet. Battle away from home: women in the First World War [Internet]. Carlos III University of Madrid [Internet]. [2016]. Available at: https: // e -archivo.UC3M.ES/HANDLE/10016/19805?s
- Liam Claudia Romero Ameri. Patient’s perception about the quality of care provided by the nurse in the Medicine Service at Daniel Alcides Carrión National Hospital [Internet]. Available at: https: // pdfs.Semanticscholar.Org/EFAA/34CF48D021858C3DED757BF65A660D8F1571.PDF
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