Wallowing in Self-Pity

Abstract The United States and some other Western cultures discourage adults from crying and publicly expressing pain. Metaphors for self-pity show the cultural pressures brought to bear on people who try to make their suffering known. In recent novels and films, metaphors of enclosure, paralysis, and filth depict self-pity as so shameful that they may drive people to suffer in silence. The films G. I. Jane and Bridesmaids illustrate the social rewards offered to women who shun self-pity and the peer pressure directed toward women who “wallow.” Findings in the field of self psychology raise doubts about whether self-pity is as detrimental as popular metaphors indicate. Depictions of self-pity as filthy and entrapping probably have physiological roots but can serve political ends by making injured people feel too ashamed to speak out.