Life, Death, & What Dreams May Come

1127 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Love is something unconditional mother essay

Unconditional love can be described as a pure affection bereft of circumstance. It is a true positive regard of others that bares no judgment. In a sense, unconditional love has no boundaries. In the film What Dreams May Come, the boundary between life and death fades and a family’s bond is tested. Tragedy by tragedy, unconditional love and guilt play major roles in the defiance of the laws of death. Chris Nielsen, the main character of the film, travels to the depths of the afterlife to find his beloved wife Annie and restore his family. In an epic journey that questions the very fabric of reality and faith, the Nielson family overcomes all odds and is reunited in the end. Throughout the film, unconditional love is represented in the Nielson’s love for their children, despite their faults; furthermore, this is continually shown with each death that claims a loved one from the family. This film is realistic in that unconditional love is seen beyond the screen and in our own lives.
Children are the manifestation of their parents’ love and trust, but also their faults and struggles. Amongst many of the things Chris and Annie share their love for are their two children: Marie and Ian. Marie is most like Annie in the fact that she is stubborn and often pessimistic. When her dog is put down, she feels a tremendous guilt and decides that happy endings do not exist. She explains to her father during a chess match that dreams are not real. If they were, her miniature diorama is her dream of where she would go when she dies. This is an important scene in the film because it introduces the opposition to the idea that an afterlife exists. Ian is similar to Chris because he strives to do his best, but is defeated when he can’t compare to his...

... middle of paper ...

...amily. This is a remarkable concept in that love is a commonality among all races and peoples. So many wars, hate crimes, and murders have been fueled by hatred of differences. Showing love and kindness instead of negativity will lead us into a new age; an age where we bare no judgment and focus on more important things. Annie is quoted as saying “Sometimes when you lose, you win.” Love is what won over the guilt in Annie’s heart after she lost her family. Just like the film, love is what won when my aunt and uncle lost what mattered most to them. The film What Dreams May Come clearly represents the idea that unconditional love triumphs over any given circumstance, mortal or otherwise.

Works Cited

What Dreams May Come. Dir. Vincent Ward. By Richard Matheson. Screenplay by Ronald Bass. Perf. Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra. Polygram, 1998. DVD.

Show More
Related

  • Death and Rebirth in the Hours

    1360 Words  | 3 Pages

    Adapted from Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Director Stephen Daldry and playwright David Hare, The Hours was inspired by Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway. It is no coincidence that The Hours was the working title Woolf had given Mrs. Dalloway as she was writing it. The emotional trauma that this film guides its viewers through becomes evident in the opening prologue. The scene begins with Virginia Woolf composing what would be her suicide notes to her husband Leonard and her sister Vanessa, the two most important people in her life (Curtis, 57.) She begins: "I feel certain that I am going mad again: I feel we can't go through another of these terrible times... You have given me the greatest possible happiness.. ." The portrayal of this process quickly demonstrates the turmoil Woolf is feeling, both from her oncoming episode of "madness" and the difficulty she is having finding the correct words to say "farewell" (Lee, Hermoine). The prologue comes to its climax as Kidman portrays Woolf's suicide. It is a gut-wrenching display of one's "matter-of-fact" acceptance of one's own coming death. Very dramatically, Woolf fills the pockets of her coat with large stones and stoically walks into a swollen river. Her head slowly disappears beneath the muddy water as all hope of her reconsidering her suicide is swept away with the current.

    Read More

  • Death Constant Beyond Love

    2031 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is inevitable that we will all die it is a fact that everyone must come to terms with. There comes a time in everyone’s life that they must face death; a friend’s tragic accident, a family member’s passing or their own battles with diseases. When faced with the idea of death people will act in different ways some may find it therapeutic to apologize for the negative they have done, some may want to spend time with loved ones to ease the future pain, and others may decide that their life was not what they believed. The story Death Constant Beyond Love tells us about a man named Senator Sanchez who is living a happy life with his wife and five kids. That is until he is told by doctors that he only has a short time to live. Death is unknown much like love, we do not know or understand when love will find us, and it is the same with death. In Death Constant Beyond Love is not your typical love or death story. After told about his pending doom Senator Sanchez wants to keep his life as constant as normal, until his desires for a young woman change his plans, and then he dies.

    Read More

  • Death and Reality in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

    1268 Words  | 3 Pages

    Death and Reality in "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Beloved And One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1913 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the book, Beloved, by Toni Morrison and the movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, featuring Jack Nickolson, both share a common theme of love and loving oneself. Morrison’s character, Baby Suggs, is the source of love for her people. Similarly, Jack Nicholson’s character McMurphy tries to give the men confidence, so that they can love themselves. To be loved is to be supported, whether succeeds or fail. This support gives the confidence needed to go day to day. In both situations, deprived characters have experienced traumatic events, which have made them unsure of what love is or even feels like. The roles of McMurphy and Baby Suggs are to show these characters that despite their troubled pasts, they can make it in the world, with proper support and love.

    Read More

  • Destructive Love in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

    1770 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Song of Solomon, through many different types of love, —Ruth's incestuous love, Milkman and Hagar's romantic love, and Guitar's love for his race, —Toni Morrison demonstrates not only the readiness with which love will turn into a devastating and destructive force, but also the immediacy with which it will do so. Morrison tackles the amorphous and resilient human emotion of love not to glorify the joyous feelings it can effect but to warn readers of love's volatile nature. Simultaneously, however, she gives the reader a clear sense of what love is not. Morrison explicitly states that true love is not destructive. In essence, she illustrates that if "love" is destructive, it is most likely, a mutation of love, something impure, because love is all that is pure and true.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Movie Beloved

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    “A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushed down remorselessly all that stands in its path,” written by Agatha Christie. The movie Beloved is a true tell of a mother’s fight to keep her child out of the hands of slavery. When one of Sethe’s children who she thought died long ago

    Read More

  • Love in Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Autobiography of My Mother

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... eventually realizes that there is absolutely no way to control whom you will love or when one will fall love. Xuela admits, “It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life from its beginning, is a mystery to you.” (Kincaid 202). The love that both Janie and Xuela feel, testifies to the incalculable and expected, nature of love.

    Read More

  • Outliving Oneself

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    The idea of “Outliving Oneself” depends on the concepts of trauma and most importantly the self, in a situation where said trauma obliterates the self for an indefinite amount of time. Brison presents the self in three interwoven parts: the embodied self, the self as narrative, and the autonomous self. Any of these parts of self depend largely on the individual’s society, culture, and interactions with other people. The embodied self represents the self in conjunction with the physical body, which our society separates from the self, to intimate a soul or personality, and also assigns genders to certain traits. Trauma dissolves this separation of body and mind because violence brings the traumatized to face their own mortality. They have to see their body as an object because their assailant treats it as an object. Trauma is so damaging because the self cannot exert any power whatsoever; the interaction between the assailant and the victim, essentially a social situation, robs the victim of a voice, because the assailant ignores it, a personality, because it is of no consequence to the assailant, and a self, because the assailant uses the body as an object, and the body plays a more central role in the interaction than the self does. Brison quotes Cathy Winkler in saying a rape is a “social murder,” because the rapist’s part in the interaction defines the victim through their actions that take away the victim’s sense of self. Any control that the victim felt over their body gets taken from them by the rapist. The consequences of this trauma include a loss of control over physiological functions, such as emotion and incapacitation from anxiety; the body and mind are out of balance, which leads the victim to be stigmatized by societ...

    Read More

  • The Meaning Of Life Death And The Universe

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    Albert Camus is a widely renowned author and existentialist philosopher from the 1950s. He believed in a concept called “The Absurd” which he described as the notion that our universe is completely irrational, yet people continue to try and give order and meaning to it. For most normal human beings, this is an extremely difficult concept to accept, including the main character from the novel “The Stranger”, Meursault. Meursault does not express and ignores his emotions, even though it is evident in the book that he does experience them. However, once Meursault falls into a blind rage with the chaplain, the universe begins to make more sense to him. In order to come to an acceptance of the indifference of the universe, one must have an emotional breakthrough, which Camus shows through differences in sentence structure and elemental imagery between parts one and two.

    Read More

  • Relationships in "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses"

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The story employs a dramatic point of view that emphasizes the fragility of human relationships. It shows understanding and agreemen...

    Read More

  • Intersectionality in Crash: A Look Into Anthony

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... that the film opens with. While the story may be slightly dramatic and pieces of the story “coincidentally” seem to fall into exactly the wrong place at the wrong time causing the tragedies in the film to happen, the events in this film are entirely capable of being a reality. Racism and prejudice continue to be prevalent issues in our society, but like Anthony, we can learn to overcome anything that holds us back from putting unity into practice and making our world a better place for everyone.

    Read More

  • Anu's Dream Of The Afterlife

    338 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the reading, Gildamesh was a king who seemed to be almost perfect in every aspect. It was as though he was blessed by the gods. “Two-thirds they made him god and one-third man.” Physically, he was perfect but his personality was atrocious. Enkidu told Gildamesh about his dream of the afterlife. It began with a man-bird standing in front of him. It took him to the palace of Irkalla, the Queen of Darkness, which no one could return from. The food was dust and the meat was clay. Enkidu then saw the past rulers and princes, all taking the role of servants fetching food for the gods like Anu and Enlil. I think their thoughts about the afterlife were peculiar, and it is their thoughts that actually surprised me.

    Read More

  • Death: Learning to Live

    1603 Words  | 4 Pages

    What is death? What makes death such an avoided subject? According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, death is defined as: the permanent cessation of vital functions; the end of life. So maybe we fear death and death’s process because the thought of life ending is unbearable or because we know little about the dying process and naturally, as humans, we fear the unknown. These all may be true and in most cases probably are. But if one was to take a look at death and the process and consider the true meaning of that very moment in one’s life, maybe we would view it differently and maybe, just maybe, see life itself in a whole new way?! Marie de Hennezel, in her book Intimate Death defines death as . . . “our life’s culmination, it’s crowning moment and what gives it both sense and worth” (xi). She sheds light on the positive side of death, the part no one thinks about or acknowledges. And she shows us that death can in fact make us see how amazing life can be. In his book, The Body Silent, Robert Murphy shares with us the changes in life and actions of society when faced with the process of death.

    Read More

  • Life After Death

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    What is going to happen to us when we will die? Some people never considered what it could happen to them after life. For many people, death is a redoubtable event because they do not know what to expect after their death. However, other persons, such as religious people are conscious of what to expect after their death because of their beliefs. Each religion has different ideas and different ways of looking life. Death, therefore, is viewed by different religions in many ways. Although, different religions have a distinct conception of death, they all have something in common: they all give hope to people. Among all different religions in the world, four of the most common ones - Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu- view death in different ways.

    Read More

  • Death In Life Essay

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.

    Read More

More about Life, Death, & What Dreams May Come

Open Document