Hey, all. I'm still here. It's just that the semester started and I'm going full-time and school is keeping me busy. I have College Algebra, Psych 101, Speech 101 and English 201. We're assigned to write an analysis essay using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or other criteria, to help with the analysis. And guess who I'm writing mine about? Except that when I applied Maslow to Joe, I didn't have much. I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask for help, but I was wondering if I could get some input from you on my essay and your thoughts on Joe and what motivates him. I can post that in a seperate thread. Thanks, bunches!

Don't know how much this helps, but Katsesama did a great psychological write up for Joe several years ago... Katsesama's write up

I don't know if this will help, but I thought about how you might go at this. (I needed to quickly look up Maslow's Hierarchy, since it haven't done anything with that since I went for my BS in Education...and that was 25 years *groan!* ago!) Anyway, it seems to me that, if you focus on the moment Joe's parents were killed, you'll have your essay. (It seems a bit obvious to me now, but when I read your post for the first time, my first reaction was, "What motivates Joe? Revenge, duh!" But that's not much to work with.) When asked the question "Was this group of needs harmed when his parents died?", I found about 4/5 of the hierarchy was directly affected. (Could you really ever feel safe in a world where your parents were killed in front of you and you were caught in a bomb blast? Would you ever allow yourself to be loved or have a sense of belonging if you're convinced that anybody associated with you would die a violent death?) If nothing else, I hope this gives you something to start with.

I did get the safety part, because yes, I did see that his safety need was not met and that's what motivates him to seek revenge and fight and be the way he is. I'll have to explore more of that. As I was writing my rough draft, the essay kept veering into archetypes, which led me down another research rabbit hole and more fascinating things. I will have to ask about word limits when I go to class this afternoon. I know there is a minimum, but I think my professor said five pages. I knew of the "write-up" that Katsesama did, but I don't think I've read it. I will definitely take a look at it.

I don't have much to add to this. Good stuff has already been said. There's also the issue that Joe had to give up part of his identity to live in hiding and that he was taken to a country where presumably he didn't know the language. That's a whole lot of starting over on top of losing his parents and almost being murdered, himself.

Can't add anything -- just posted to let you know that I've learnt quite a lot from reading this thread -- thank you!

I received feedback from my professor, who thinks I should stick with archetypes instead of Maslow (although I can mention Maslow). So now I'm trying to make sense of Jung. This is a paper for English Comp, by the way, so I don't have to write a dry psychoanalysis. Thanks for the feedback so far.

Good luck.

I don't have much to add (I never really took any psychology classes) but I would love to see the paper when you are finished!

Me too! Psych is a hobby of mine...