Campbell - Ladder 49

Jack Morris, In ladder 49, is in my opinion is torn in his relationship between his career as a Firefighter and the bonds that are formed as a consequence of the occupation and his family. As a first responder, Jack has to reconcile his self imposed responsibility to save the lives of other people while placing his own life at risk, with the responsibility of his family.

Jacks relationship with his brother firefighters seems to be one that is one of strong comradery and sharing of personal moments of their whole life where as his relationship with his wife is more compartmentalized not letting her in to all aspects of his life.  The reason Jack does not allow his wife in all the way, is for the fact that he knows she will worry if she were to hear the details of his daily encounters with dangerous incidents.  Jack does this because he feels it is his responsibility to protect his wife from the worry of his duties.  At the same time, this is hard for Jack because he loves his job as a firefighter and it defines who is as man and he wants to share this sense of pride in what he does.  This is somewhat of a circular effect in which Jack and men like can’t share with their wives and families the details of what they do so they confide and share with their feelings and emotions with their comrades.

What I found interesting and can relate to, is that Jack would feel responsible for and personally carry the burden of his friends in comrades deaths and injury, often putting himself in more danger in hopes of sparing one of them.  Which, if you boil down the personality of people like jack who enter in these types of jobs, that is why they do it what they do.  At the same time he is not giving the same consideration to how it will affect his family. This is a struggle that many people like Jack have, How do they justify putting their lives at risk for strangers when they have a family that they are responsible for too. In the movie the viewer gets a glimps of this as Jack realizes that he is not going to make out of the building.  He tells his friend to look after his family, which he know will happen because of the bonds they have forged based on the commonality of the work they do and the stories they only tell to each other.  For myself and for jack, this is how we rationalize putting our lives at risk for others, knowing we may not come home to our families.