Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Beautiful Mind, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mental Illness, Recovery, and the Quest for Knowledge
Genius, Morality, and Relationships
Love, Desire, and the Impact of Hidden Lives
Summary
Analysis
Later in his life, John Nash wrote in a letter to his sister Martha that only three individuals had ever brought him “any real happiness.” Before 1952, Nash had never experienced mutual attraction with any of the men he had loved—until he met Ervin Thorson, also a RAND employee, whom Nash referred to obliquely in letters as his “special friend,” “T.” Thorson, an intensely private man, never married, and eventually quit his job at the age of 47; he moved back to his hometown of Pomona and became a “virtual recluse.”
A few of the men Nash was romantically involved with, including Thorson, became intensely reclusive or experienced mental breakdowns after their relationships with Nash collapsed. Though Nasar does not explicitly fault Nash for inflicting emotional damage on his lovers, she does suggest that his intense personality and erratic behavior may have played a role in Thorson’s later difficulties in life.
Themes
