Many people think that punishing themselves will take their problems away. In the novel, Ordinary People, and in the movie, Good Will Hunting, the main characters show the people the guilt they go through and the punishment the main characters create in order to escape their guilt, but then they comprehend that it is not their fault, which made their guilt actually go away.

In the novel, Ordinary People, Conrad punishes himself for the death of his younger brother because Conrad loved him and thought that it was his fault that he died. Berger, the psychiatrists, states," punishment doesn't do a damn thing for the guilt, does it? It doesn't make it go away"(210). Berger is telling him that it is useless of trying to punish himself because it is not going to do any good; his brother is not going to come back just because he formed...