Cast Away

767 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Debate whether capitalism is better than communism

In the movie Cast Away, Chuck Noland says that to turn ones back on time is to commit a sin. In this movie, Chuck’s life revolves around time, and his ability to make more money is directly affected by time. This fact, however, is exactly what is related as a bad thing. Throughout the movie, capitalistic ventures, which require an extreme investment of time, are characterized as evil. The message sent in Cast Away is that we live in a corrupt and morally bankrupt society which is only concerned with the bottom line, but if we all “get back to the basics” and search our souls for what really matters in life, we may have a chance of turning out okay.

Chuck Noland represents the United States in this movie, especially in the former Soviet Union. As hinted when the picture of Lenin is being removed, Russia is still not completely devoid of communism, in which the basic idea is equality (Cast Away). Bring in the American Chuck Noland, who is only concerned with how fast things move (so that FedEx makes an extra dollar), and this society is corrupted. This is revealed quite startlingly in the scene where Chuck pulls a clock out of a FedEx box. The 80 or so hours it took the box to get to Russia is inconsequential to the Russians (Cast Away). They do not know that to effectively “compete” in the marketplace they have to ship faster and faster, and even if they did, they would not care. Still, to Chuck, this is an outrage because he is losing money due to “excess” time. The interpreter even has to make an excuse for Chuck’s behavior because the Russians find it absurd (Cast Away). This all goes to further develop the idea that American democracy is slowly eating away at the ideals of the rest of the world. The movie is re...

... middle of paper ...

...eals with the fact that fixation on time in order to make money is evil. The World Trade Center represents the financial heart of America, and it is also run on time. It can then be inferred that the people who work in this building could be labeled as evil using the standards that this movie creates. Also, with the title Cast Away, it is implied that these people should be exiled or “gotten rid of” for a period of time. Since these buildings were destroyed and the people killed, one could make the connection that the movie is implying that this event may have been a good thing, which it is not. Nonetheless, that connection could be made by people, which would have caused the makers of the movie to change the title if it had, indeed, come out after September 11, 2001.

Works Cited
Zemeckis, Robert. Cast Away. Feat. Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt. 20th Century Fox. 2000.

Show More
Related

  • Dr. Strangelove Satire

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    Americans during the 60s lived in constant fear of nuclear war, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film shows how easy it is for one person to destroy the world in a nuclear firestorm if governments are not careful enough. Ripper’s argument about fluoridated water also reflects the belief of some Americans that fluorine was actually a Cold War weapon by the Soviets to turn American communist. General Jack D. Ripper himself also served to present an American stereotype along with General Turgidson. They both seeked to destroy the Soviet Union without any care to logic or human life. Turgidson, in particular, reminds me of Patton, who wanted to invade the Soviet Union after WWII, and MacArthur, who wanted to invade China during the Korean War. Both of these generals epitomize how people thought of Americans as zealously anti communist and violently stupid. Additionally, Dr. Strangelove and his proposal for fallout shelters show how much the Cold War interfered with Americans’ lives with the constant duck and cover drills and shelters for nuclear war. Finally, the captain of the B-52, King Kong, also represents American stereotypes with his southern accent and his patriotic final act of sitting on top of the bomb while it is falling down towards the Soviet Union. When he found out about the orders, he did not question them and went down fighting. Many people regarded Americans as gun toting southerners who were just as patriotic as they were trigger

    Read More

  • Analysis Of John F Kennedy Speech On Steel

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    In paragraph two he states ”when we are confronted with grave crisis in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and families for months on end…” President Kennedy starts each of his statements with “when we are” to address the sacrifices the people are making while the steel companies prioritizes in this dark hour, which shows they don’t care about their nation. He then shows us how this would be worsened even further if the steel companies maintained the high prices. Kennedy also states “It would make it more difficult for American goods to compete in foreign markets, more difficult to withstand competition from foreign imports, and thus more difficult to improve our balance of payments position…” He then repeatedly starts off with the phrase “more difficult.” This repetition, incorporated with facts, proves his point that the steel companies were unpatriotic and greedy because he shows how much trouble and difficulty the rise in steel companies would cause. Besides using the strategy of repeating words and phrases, Kennedy also uses statistics to achieve his argument.

    Read More

  • A Book Report On The Outsiders By S. E. Hinton

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    Title: The Outsiders Author: S.E. Hinton Publication Information: Dell Publishing, 1967; 156 Pages Genre: Young Adult Novel The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, is about the rivalry of two gangs, Greasers and Socials. The Greasers are low class and the Socials are high class. In The Outsiders there are two rival gangs, one from the lower class, who are the Greasers and their rivals are from the upper class, they are the Socials.

    Read More

  • The Outsiders Book Report Essay

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton Published 1967 Published by: Puffin Books Genre: fiction The book The Outsiders is the realistic story about this between two very different groups in a town in the United States: the poor Greasers from the east side, and the Socs, whitch is what the greasers call the socials, the richer boys from the other side of the town. Ponyboy Curtis is the narrator of the story, a 14-year-old boy who lives with his two older brothers, Darry and Soda. He is a pretty good athlete and student, but is not treated the same as the richer students at his school. Ponyboy uses to have long hair that he greases back, a symbol of being in the outsider gang. He is unhappy with his situation, because Darry is too protective of him

    Read More

  • “Cast Away” Reviewed Through the Eyes of a Transcendentalist

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    In brief, “Cast Away”, made in year 2000 (80 years after the first practicing of Transcendentalism), is an American adventure drama film that tells the story of Chuck, a time-obsessed systems analyst, who travels worldwide resolving productivity problems at FedEx depots. He is unwillingly forced into the wrath of nature when his mail carrier malfunctions and crashes into the ocean near a small, uninhabited island. Chuck is the only person to survive the accident and is then forced to fend for himself for the next couple of years.

    Read More

  • Bullets Over Broadway

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    Of course, you'd never have time to ponder this question while in the midst of

    Read More

  • The Outsiders

    461 Words  | 1 Pages

    "The Outsiders" is a story that deals with a conflict between two gangs, the "Greasers" from the East Side of town and the "Socs" from the east-side of town. This is a story that is told in the first person. Ponyboy Curtis is the one telling the story. Here is a summary of the story.

    Read More

  • Spirited Away

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    Human beings are fascinated by heroes. Joseph Campbell believes that throughout history heroes have followed a hero’s journey model or monomyth. This means that there are common patterns that can be found in many hero stories. Time after time, people have read about heroes leaving the ordinary world to complete the quest that will change mankind and better the hero. While many tasks and challenges may lie in the hero’s way they always return victorious. The Hero serves a dual purpose. Heroes are smart, brave and resilient. They show the world what is possible through hard work and perseverance. Heroes also reflect the fears and limitations that people are faced with. Heros inspires people to be the best versions of themselves. Chihiro the main character in Hayao Miyazaki’s film Spiri

    Read More

  • Similarities Between 9/11 Attacks 'And Leap' By Brian Doyle

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    September 11th 2001 was a monstrosity of a day filled with intense fear, heightened anxiety, and blood curdling screams. The Twin Towers, located in lower Manhattan, New York, were demolished by plane hijackers involved with the group Al-Qaeda. Two skyscrapers that had once seemed to reach for the clouds, now crumbled into dust. This series of events caused world-wide attention, and September 11th will be forever memorialized each year across the United States. Because of this new altitude resulting from this terrorist attack, many writers were motivated to illustrate the actions in their own way to explain their points of view on that bleak day. The authors conveyed the series of events with different attitudes, vocabulary, and writing styles. For instance, “9/11 Attacks” and “Leap” by Brian Doyle are two

    Read More

  • Homeward bound

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    Homeward Bound intertwines two old-fashioned narratives of suburban 1950’s with rampant anticommunism; allowing it to be a persuasive historical argument. Attempting to establish why, unlike both their children and parent, postwar Americans citizens looked to marriage along parenthood involving great enthusiasm and promise. May discovers that cold war philosophy and the domestic restoration were dual sides of the same coin. Postwar American citizens felt the need to become liberated from past mishaps to be more secure in the following years. According to the author national containment was an product of the uncertainties and objectives released after the war. Within the household, potentially threating social entities of the new age could be tamed, where they could add to the security and fulfillment of life that men and women wanted to obtain. However, the satisfying emphases of 1950’s great minds and physiologists suggested personal and private resolutions to social issues. The modern family was the place in which that alteration was expected to occur. The household was the atmosphere in which families could feel comfortable with themselves. Giving that, domestic restraint and its calming corollary weakened the potential for political involvement and protected the alarming effects of anticommunism and the cold-war consent.

    Read More

  • Cruel Intentions

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cruel Intentions The film Cruel Intentions, directed by John Hughes, is a fast paced. glimpse into the lives of the young New Yorkers whose entire existence. revolves around power, sexuality and to some extent class A drugs. Hughes The direction for the movie concentrates on those who prey on innocence.

    Read More

  • Analytical Critique of The Godfather

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    The themes of the film are timeless, but the historical period in which the film takes place is also very significant. As the movie begins, the family?s youngest son has just recently returned from World War II. As the movie progresses, parallels are made between the Corleone family and the rest of the world. The war between the rival families is much like the conflicts between nations during World War II. After Don Corleone is shot in the streets, it?s a wake up cal...

    Read More

  • apocalypse now

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    The concept of pastiche has encountered much attention from the exponents of post modernism. As the concern with reproduction of earlier texts is central to adaptation, it is appropriate to consider adapted films as pastiche where diverse texts merge together. Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now can be considered as pastiche because of its intertextual meanings which are mostly drawn from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

    Read More

  • Stress Management Case Study

    1566 Words  | 4 Pages

    Humans presently have always imagined time in correlation with the amount of years they spend on the earth. Therefore, within our fast paced culture, time has been considered applicable to our lives. Humans today spend more brain energy and thought processes wondering how to increase their time not only on earth but in daily activities. Based on this common trend, humans have become slaves to time and its requirements. On the west coast particularly, people feel like they must achieve the most they could with their lives under certain time frames. For example, dating, loans, education and even travel are all dictated by time. Time to humans has become a staple-point of our culture and decides how we embark daily and live our lives. It would

    Read More

  • A film I have seen

    528 Words  | 2 Pages

    I’ve seen a lot of films, and with a lot of different genres. But I don’t think that romantic films are pretty good. They are too boring. The good films are action or comedy films, but the best films are action and com-edy films mixed together. That’s why I’ve chosen the film Taxi 2. It’s a French produced film, with a lot of action and comedy. It’s a pretty new film, and I saw it in the cinema last month. I’ve looked very much forward to see that film, because Taxi was very good too. It took only 5 weeks to get 10 mil-lion Frenchmen into the cinema. Just for watching Taxi 2.

    Read More

More about Cast Away

Open Document