Analysis Of Red Of Roadside Picnic And The Attributed 'Stalker'

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The unfulfillment of wishes and dreams or yet-to-be fulfilled promise surrounding the zone both torment Red of Roadside Picnic and the attributed ‘Stalker” in the later film adaptation directed by the auteur, Andrei Tarkovsky. However, it is the respective protagonists’ emotional integrity that most significantly contributes to their fall and devastating descent into madness. In this essay, I will use a psychoanalytical lens to highlight the above thesis. Accordingly, I will compare and provide evidence to the level of mental stability/instability and or callousness that is a result of how each character responds to the dangers within the zone and the familial and socio-political turmoil surrounding both characters outside of it. Before I delve into the intricacies of my …show more content…

It’s hard to deduce an answer so simple from a story a story that is full of possibilities — one that tends to expand beyond belief and possibility, like the zone itself. With that being said, I think it is important to commentate on the manner and how quickly Red from each adaptation develops. Now, in the film, audiences may find it difficult to gauge the emotional complexity and the character development within Red as the film progresses. In fact, we don’t get much at all, we can only assume he is and has been a conflicted individual from the beginning. While we see how he responds his surroundings within the zone that will part of the discussion will be held off a little later on. On the other hand, with “Roadside picnic,” audiences receive a much more gradual development of Red’s character given the thorough nature of literature, and although the book moves forward by years through each section, we still can trace how Red became the man he was at the end of the book simply because we have in-depth, detailed insight into how he thinks and how he processes conflict and existential dilemma.

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