In reading through the chapter on Social Penetration example after example came into my mind. If you think about it, this theory applies to every relationship that a person has ever been involved in. Whether it be with teachers, friends, or family, everyone goes through the same process in some way or another. The example that I have chose to use in effort to illustrate this theory in action is the movie Saving Private Ryan.

The movie is told through the eyes of a squad of American soldiers that begins with the D-Day invasion of WWII. These men make it past the beach and embark on a special mission. John Miller (Tom Hanks) takes his men behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan who is the sole survivor of his family. He had three brothers that were killed in action and the government was giving him a ticket home. Facing near impossible odds, the men start to question their orders. They begin to wonder why they are risking the lives of eight people to save one that is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Being constantly surrounded by war, each soldier searches for himself and tries to find the strength and courage to carry out the mission with honor and decency. One thing to keep in mind is the circumstances under which the relationships between the men evolved. The tragedies of war surrounded them and they were under extreme and constant stress. Certainly these men would act and feel differently if they were in "normal" conditions.

In the beginning of the movie when Hanks gets his squad, no one knows anything about each other. They start out on their quest to find Ryan and they begin to talk to each other and become friends. These conversations come about from boredom and silence. At first, the soldiers tell each where they are from, and as the movie progresses they begin to open up more and more and disclose more personal information. Through this time Hanks keeps to himself and just takes everything in. His squad even has a bet for money to see who the first person would be to find out where the Captain was from.

The mission gets extremely tiresome as time goes on and the squadron of soldiers begin to get testy but also begin to open up and become closer to each other. There is one particular scene where one soldier talks about how he missed his mother. He continued to say that he would fake sleep when his mom would come home late from work because he did not want to talk to her and all she wanted to do was find out how his day was. If you have ever seen the movie I am sure you remember, if not, this scene was pretty intense. Up to this point still nothing from Hanks. All the soldiers in his squad have reached the point to where they would do anything for each other.

At the end of the movie a fight breaks out between one of the soldiers and the rest of the squad. The fight stems from and argument over the execution of a German soldier. Right before one of his soldiers is killed, Hanks gives in and tells his squad where he is from and some of his deep feelings about what is going on. In doing this Hanks restores the unity of the group and rallies them back into order. Hanks told his squad that if saving Private Ryan would get him home to his wife than that is what he wanted to do whether he agreed with the mission or not.

Throughout the movie Hanks did not say much or tell his squad much about himself. He wanted to keep his distance under the circumstances. On the other hand, Hanks listened to everything his soldiers said and became close to them. This relationship was built not on purpose, but because of the communication that took place. Because Hanks was close to his squad he was able to grab their attention with the disclosure of his feelings. When he decided to disclose his feelings, Hanks felt that the rewards of his disclosure outweighed the costs. It is easy to see the comparison between the relationships of the characters in the movie and the onion analogy in the book.

Greg did some reseach on The Interactional View that can apply to the movie I just discussed. His page talks about symmetrical and complimentary relationships, and the tranistory concept. Each of these three ideas can be seen in the movie Saving Private Ryan. To take a closer look at Greg's Research click here.