Charlie St. Cloud demonstrates a broad range of emotional scenes, powerful language, and significant communication. In the movie, Charlie deals with several very difficult events, and he handles some of them better than others. The first scene in the movie that stood out to me was in the ambulance when Charlie realizes that it’s too late to save his brother. Charlie is clearly in shock and he becomes distraught, expressing emotions both verbally and non-verbally. He screams his brother’s name repeatedly and tries fighting off the paramedic off to get to him. Charlie says, “I can’t leave him,” which is irrational because his brother is dead, he apologizes to Sam and cries until he is subdued by the paramedic. We can interpret from his words and actions that he is feeling a tremendous amount of guilt, grief, and fear all at the same time. …show more content…
Another scene that displays Charlie’s emotional thought-process is when he punches a guy in a bar.
Rather than accepting responsibility for his feelings and attempting to manage the emotions he’s feeling, Charlie uses violence as an outlet for his anger and punches the other man. Instead, he could have used the process of self-talk to understand that the rude man’s comments were a reflection on that person and the best plan of action would be to ignore the guy. A significant use of language is in the scene where Charlie leaves on the boat to find Tess, consequently missing his meeting with Sam. He says, “Forgive me, Sam.” This is important because the specific choice of words has multiple implications. The way I see it, he is taking responsibility for the accident and trying to come to terms with his guilt. His meetings with Sam seemed like a way for him to apologize to his brother, even though his death was accidental. This brief use of language reveals a lot about Charlie’s
thought-process. The last communication concept I noticed in the movie is low context vs. high context communication styles. Even though these terms are usually used to describe cultures, I’ve noticed that it can also be applied to films. Charlie. St. Cloud strikes me as a high context story because it doesn’t explicitly explain some things, like how Charlie can communicate with Sam and Tess and even his friend from high school. Charlie doesn’t say, “I can talk to dead people because I flatlined,” and the film doesn’t provide other explicit explanations; instead the audience is expected to come to conclusions based on the clues.
Both quotes show the extent of Charlie’s change throughout the novel. Silvey also uses this element to successfully create empathy from the readers and make the book that much more brilliant.
Charlie was innocent, he didn’t have many social experiences. Think back when the first time Charlie saw Laura’s dead body. “Why would you bring me here? I shouldn’t be here. I have to go back home. You have to tell someone about this.” His anxious shows he didn’t want to participate this mess, in part, he’s smart enough to know it would be a trouble, but he’s also full of fear. After Jasper’s persuasion, Charlie decides to help him find the real murderer. Craig Silvey gives us a huge surprise at the beginning of the book, we might think it’s a story about children’s adventure. On the contrary, as things happened, we come to realize it is not just a simple story, it’s more about a horrific thing. When Charlie run into this horrific thing, he is feared. Maybe, it’s more appropriate to
One of the challenges Charlie experiences when living with his disabilities, is he struggles to understand. In this part of the novel, Charlie is being debated if they should use him, but he fails to recognize many words they are saying. Professor Nemur says, "The frist of your new breed of intelek** coudnt get the word*** superman. But most people of his low ment** are host** and uncoop** they are usally dull and apathet** are hard to reach." When he can't recognize the word, Charlie just cuts it out. This means, he only will partly understand what that person is trying to say. This demonstrates his troubles since if he cannot follow what they are saying, he cannot understand them. Not only does Charlie have difficulty understanding Professor
Character- The main character Charlie is developed in many ways throughout the story. His whole demeanor changed from page one. He actually started smoking in the middle of the book. “When I light it, I didn’t cough. It actually felt soothing. I know that’s bad in a health class kind of way, but it was true.”-pg 102 His personality was different after that. He always tried to be friendly to anyone he met but if you weren’t nice to his friends he didn’t really respect them after that. His dialogue is very similar throughout the whole book. He is very friendly when he talks and tries to be polite. Charlie is trying to make friends and keep them. He succeeds with some coaching from his english teacher who Charlie calls Bill. Bill gave him books to read and graded Charlie’s reports. “He says that I have a great skill at reading and understanding language.”- pg 9-10. A’s showed on Charlie’s report card but Bill gave Charlie different grades. The books Bill gave Charlie changed his mind about a lot of things. Bill developed Charlie through the whole book.
... reader. Throughout the book, Charlie unfolds secrets and truths about the world and the society that he lives in; secrets and truths that cause him to grow up and transition into adulthood. He also makes a life changing decision and rebelled against was he thought was the right thing. This reflects his maturity and bravery throughout the journey he travels that summer. Charlie eyes suddenly become open to the injustice that the town of Corrigan demonstrates. He also comes to face the issue of racism; not only shown towards his best friend Jeffrey and the Lu family but to Jasper Jones as well. He realises the town of Corrigan is unwilling to accept outsiders. Charlie not only finds out things that summer about the people that surround him, but he also finds out who he is personally.
Growing up, Charlie faced two difficult loses that changed his life by getting him admitted in the hospital. As a young boy, he lost his aunt in a car accident, and in middle school, he lost his best friend who shot himself. That Fall, Charlie walks through the doors his first day of highschool, and he sees how all the people he used to talk to and hang out with treat him like he’s not there. While in English class, Mr. Anderson, Charlie’s English teacher, notices that Charlie knew the correct answer, but he did not want to speak up and let his voice be heard. As his first day went on, Charlie met two people that would change named Sam and Patrick who took Charlie in and helped him find himself. When his friends were leaving for college, they took one last ride together in the tunnel and played their favorite song. The movie ends with Charlie reading aloud his final letter to his friend, “This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story, you are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder, when you were listening to that song” (Chbosky). Ever since the first day, Charlie realized that his old friends and classmates conformed into the average high schooler and paid no attention to him. Sam and Patrick along with Mr. Anderson, changed his views on life and helped him come out of his shell. Charlie found a
In books the author relies on words, experiences of the character and others accounts to show emotion. In movies there are more ways to inflict emotion; through images, facial expression, dialogue, and music. Not only did these different works of art show emotion in different ways but they also made audiences feel different things. The tone of the book was a much darker one than that of the movie. Jon Krakauer included stories of McCandless childhood, struggles, and last days alive to show the darker parts of his journey. Some examples of this are; telling readers right away that McCandless is dead, his father's secret family, months that his family and friends spent worrying about him, ways he could have easily avoided his death and so on. None of these experiences described in the book make readers feel an overwhelming sense of happiness of joy. Krakauer focused more on telling the exact facts of Chris McCandless’ life no matter if it made people feel sad. Sean Penn on the other hand, painted a much happier and romantic telling of Chris’s story. Showing him and Tracey bonding, illegally paddling down the Colorado River looking free and happy, or creating amazing bonds with the people he meets along the way. The few sad parts in the movie that are shown are his parents and Carine worrying about him and his death, which is countered with the
We can all sympathize with Charlie on the surface, we have all made mistakes that we have to live with. Charlie is attempting to move forward with his life and erase the mistakes of his past. The ghosts of his past torment him repeatedly throughout the story, his child's guardians despise him and his old friends do not understand him.
For Charlie, Ignorance is bliss. He realizes that his so called ? friends? were just using him to entertain their perverse humor. Also, he was also fired from the job that he loved so much because his new intelligence made those around him feel inferior and scared.
Soon however, Charlie would encounter challenges he never faced with the intelligence of a 6 year old. Before his surgery, Charlie had great friends in Miss Kinnian and the bakery workers. After the surgery, the relationship between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn. A growing problem for Charlie’s is his extremely mixed emotions toward the opposite gender. He starts a serious relationship with Alice Kinnian, his former teacher.
...of all responsibility (for, of course, there is no way that a normal person could ever kill.) In keeping with this principle the film attempts to absolve Young Charlie from all responsibility in her Uncle's death, for it is seen as an accident that occurred when Young Charlie was fighting her Uncle in self-defence. In the final stages of the film we are brought back to the small town introduced to us in the beginning, this time, however, it is in morning for a beloved son. Charlie's death has brought Graham back to Young Charlie. We can see the good side has won the battle for her. As in early situational Charlie has learned her moral lesson and the episode may end.
Charlie struggles with apparent mental illness throughout his letters, but he never explicitly addresses this problem. His friends make him realize that he is different and it is okay to be different from everyone else. This change in perspective gives Charlie new opportunities to experience life from a side he was unfamiliar with. Without these new friends, Charlie would have never dared to try on the things he has. His friends have helped him develop from an antisocial wallflower to an adventurous young man who is both brave and loyal. Transitioning shapes how the individual enters into the workforce, live independently and gain some control over their future
He was so closed off from the rest of the world and he felt isolated and alone. The family participated in religious services a few times during the movie, and even Charlie took communion. He was no stranger to the world of spirituality. Even though he participated in religious ceremonies with his family, when he met his friends he finally realized the meaning and purpose of his life. Eventually, Charlie started to participate in life and not just watch others live. As a result, he was released from the shell that kept him trapped inside. At this point, it was clear to Charlie that there was something more to him. He was alive. This becomes clear in the tunnel scene at the end of the movie when he states, “I can see it. This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you’re listening to that song and that drive with people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, we are
The film revealed a lot of business phases in its course. Charlie as the main character is ...
Because of the parties he attends with his new friends he has tried using some drugs. These new friends help Charlie see things with a positive perspective, and to be confident in himself. When his friends move away, Charlie experience isolation and has a mental crisis that leads him to be internalized in a clinic.