A Few Good Men Essay

1302 Words3 Pages

In the movie, A Few Good Men, directed by award-winning Rob Reiner, Lt. Daniel Espresso defends Private First Class Loudon Downey and Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson as they are being tried for the murder of a fellow Marine. The two soldiers were ordered to execute a “code red,” which is a hazing technique held in place for a soldier who disrespects the Marine code of honor. An internal reaction then occurred when Santiago was tied down and gagged, killing him when his lungs started bleeding. Café and his team then proceeded in court against prosecution to uncover the conspiracy on whether the soldiers were guilty, or just following an order. This film displays the idea of obedience to authority and highlights how far people will go to comply. …show more content…

Revealed from Milgram’s experiment, the environment can affect the way people think in certain situations. The hot temperatures are evident in this scene and Milgram would theorize how this change of location from the United States to a naval base in Cuba affects the ability to follow orders. Staying in an area filled with hostility, heat, and violence makes it more difficult to have a keen sense of reason. Jessup even mentions how “this fuckin’ heat’s making me absolutely crazy” (A Few Good Men). Milgram would also imply that the conditions in Guantanamo Bay affected Jessup’s decision to enforce the red code. Moreover, having an authoritative figure in the proximity is another similarity shared between Milgram and the film. Because Jessup is a high-ranking officer in the Marines, he creates a sense of status and expertise that dominates over Coffee. Milgram describes this belief in his test results, that obedience to authority “is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up” (Milgram 61). This idea supports why individuals please their higher powers of authority by following orders, much like Coffee to …show more content…

This conscience is an example of the “internalized commands and prohibitions of father, accepted by son out of fear” (Fromm 81). Jessup enjoys the intimidation he has on his peers and instills fear in their minds if they fail to obey his commands. Fromm also mentions the humanistic conscience that is absent from Jessup’s thinking because he is proven to have difficulties deciding what is conducive or destructive of life. This idea is the voice present in every human being and the “intuitive knowledge of what is human and inhuman” (Fromm 81). Jessup fails to think in this conscience when he orders the code red on Santiago and does not care about the consequences. Fromm would suggest that going against this concept creates a decline in morality and corrupts higher powers of authority, like Jessup. If Dawson and Downey were able to disobey this order, they would have grown their morals instead of falling victim to a murder case. Fromm’s main idea asserts that individuals need to decipher between right and wrong, even going as far as disobeying a Marine officer to do what is morally

Open Document