Mediums of entertainment, such as music, movies, books, television shows, etc., are made to do just that, entertain us. However, it is a popular practice of artists and writers to put underlying themes in their work. The movie Signs, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is one example of this. In the movie, there are two key philosophies that are used as the framework for character development. The first is that there are no coincidences; everything has been predetermined and everything has a purpose. This philosophy is heavily reliant in the belief of a greater power, a belief that Graham lacks. The second is that everything is chance, there is no divine power that controls our lives and everything is chance. Graham believes that this is why his wife Colleen dies. He justifies this by saying that anyone could have been walking along the road and hit by the same car, but it just so happened to be his wife. This is ultimately the reason why Graham rejects his religion and his profession as a …show more content…
priest. Throughout the movie, the appearance and significance of the signs help Graham reestablish a firm grasp on his faith. When Graham’s wife dies, her dying words are very important.
“Tell Graham to see, tell Merrill to swing away.” When she said this, Graham didn’t know what to make of it. He new that Merrill was a baseball player, so the swing away refereed to swinging a baseball bat. But what about the other part, “tell Graham to see”. This comes in handy when one of the aliens finds a way into the Hess house. The alien has Morgan in his arms, ready to spray him with the poison. Graham figures that this is the end, so he decides to fulfill his wife’s wish to “see”. So he looks around the room for what seems like a long time, and then his eyes fix on Morgan’s baseball bat on the wall. It is at this time that something clicks in Grahams brain, he understands what he has to do. He tells Merrill to “swing away” and hands him the bat. This is the turning point for Graham, religiously. This is when he begins to believe that there is someone watching over him; he begins to understand why his wife
died. The water that Bo leaves around the house is not seen as relevant until one of the final scenes of the movie. The water is lethal to the aliens. Now, it seems like the glasses were supposed to be there, as if put in place for this specific event. This pushes Graham further away from his previous thoughts and further toward religion. Graham had no clue why Bo was leaving the half drunken glasses around, perhaps it was just one of those phases that little kids go though. He is beginning to understand that there are greater powers at work protecting him and his families, no matter how random or strange the actions are. Another unlikely savior is Morgan’s asthma. When most people think of asthma, they think of an illness that is a permanent burden on anyone that has it. In this case, Morgan’s asthma saves his life, instead of taking it. The aliens possess a toxic gas that will kill humans. When Morgan gets sprayed with the gas, he has an asthma attack. His lungs close up and he can’t breathe. Because of this, the poison does not enter his body. Once he gets his medicine injected into his body and he wakes up, he doesn’t know the very thing that could have killed him saved him. This is when Graham has fully accepted faith back into his life. He resumes his profession as a minister and praises god for protecting his family.
The baseball mitt was significant to Holden as it displayed how emotionally attached that he was towards his brother, Allie. Holden carries this glove everywhere that he goes, as this glove is a symbol of his late brother. With this glove, Holden is reminded of Allie’s personality, intelligence, and his spirits which are with Holden. This mitt is significant to Holden as it was Allie’s favorite to write his poem with green ink so that he could read them on the field when he was bored. For Stradlater’s composition assignment, Holden wrote about his bothers left-handed fielder’s mitt as it meant allot to him. This shows how deeply connected that he was towards his brother, therefore when he died he broke all the garage windows, which caused him
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
Symbolism in The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye", published in 1951, is his best piece of work. The story is about a sixteen-year-old young man by the name of Holden Caulfield. Holden is being expelled from Pency Prep and decides to leave three days early. He chooses not to go home, enabling his parents to receive the letter that his headmaster at Pency Prep wrote to his parents about his expulsion. He chooses to hang around in New York until Wednesday, when he is going to be able to return home.
Ambiguity in literature after World War II reflects and explores issues of self and society. These two ideas often work against each other instead of coexisting to form a struggle-free existence. J. D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, and Richard Heller illustrate this struggle with their works. These authors explore ambiguity through different characters that experience the world in different ways. Identity, while it is an easy concept, can be difficult to attain. These authors seek out ambiguity with the human experience, coming to different conclusions. Ambiguity becomes a vehicle through which we can attempt to define humanity. J. D. Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye, Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Ball Jar, and Richard Heller’s novel, Catch 22 explore ambiguity experienced through an attempt to find self. Each experience is unique, incapable of fitting a generic mold created by society.
In this movie, the main character Ray Kinsella shows his faith in what he believes he should do. In the beginning of the movie Roy hears a voice from the corn saying, “If you build it he will come.” At this point Roy has no idea who is talking to him or what about. He tells his wife Annie and his young daughter Karen. He eventually realizes that the voices are telling him to build a baseball field so “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and his teammates can play ball. Our group thought that the voices are coming from Ray’s conscience. We thought the message the voice is trying to get across is that if he builds the baseball field his father will come. We thought this because throughout the movie Ray discusses his relationship with his father and how it wasn’t the greatest. Another example of why we thought the voice was his conscience is when the voice says, “Ease his Pain.” Ray thought that he should have eased the writer Terence Mann’s pain, but we thought the voice was saying ease the pain from the relationship with his father. The Kinsella family showed great faith throughout the movie, but Ray definitely proved his the best. By listening to the voices, he built an expensive baseball field, traveled across the country with Terence Mann to find Archibald Graham. He could have quit at any time and just forgot about the voices, but he continued to stay strong to his faith and follow his dreams. Though Ray did end up realizing why he was being told to do these things, his faith and willpower was tested throughout the movie.
In sociology symbolic interactionism explains the individual in a society and their interactions with others and through that it can explain social order and change. This theory was compiled from the teachings of George Herbert Mead in the early 20th century. Mead believed that the development of the individual was a social process. People are subjected to change based on their interactions with other people, objects or events and they assign meaning to things in order to decide how to act. This perspective depends on the symbolic meaning that people depend on in the process of social interaction. This paper will examine the movie “The Blind Side” through the symbolic interaction perspective.
In the book The Giver, Louis Lowry uses symbolism to induce the reader to think about the significance of an object or character in the book. She uses symbolism using objects or characters to represent something when she wants readers to think about its significance. She chooses not to tell her readers directly, but indirectly, by using symbolism. For example, she used light eyes, Gabriel and the sled as types of symbols with different meanings.
... His being the lone "big" person expresses his desire of being in control. The playing in the rye field next to a crazy cliff would depict the nearness to his fall while being oblivious to the danger. His one wish is to be able to prevent this, to be in control. Then, after establishing his wishes, he considers it impossible by expressing thoughts of it's craziness. He has resolved that he cannot be in control, but it is all he wants. In a world before alternatives to his painful lifestyle, what can Holden do but blindly play the game in the rye field, right beside his cliff of sanity. "But life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one must play by the rules."
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
Douglas Light said that our imagination is better than any answer to a question. Light distinguished between two genres: fantasy from fiction. He described how fantasy stimulates one’s imagination, which is more appealing, but fiction can just be a relatable story. In the same way, Books and movies are very different entities. In the short parable Doubt, the readers are lured in to the possibility of a scandalous relationship between a pastor and an alter boy. The readers’ curiosity is ignited because they are not given all the details. Therefore, their mind wanders further than the plot to create a story and characters that acted on one’s imagination; thus, the story became entertaining- flooded by the questions of what? Who? How? By which the reader can only answer. At this point, the readers create their own movie in a way. They will determine important aspects: how the character speaks, looks like, and reacts. Whereas, in the movie, the reader has no choice but to follow the plot laid out in front of them. No longer can they picture the characters in their own way or come up with their different portrayals. The fate of the story, while still unpredictable, was highly influenced by the way the characters looked, spoke, and presented themselves on screen. The movie leaves little to viewers' imaginations.In order to be entertained by literature or art, the viewer needs to feel that they can use their imagination and not be confined to a plot that reveals all.
Notably, Williams also utilizes symbolism to emphasize and allow the viewer to visualize externally the charact...
...verything around us is made by our actions. Positive or negative they cause an effect that will ultimately lead to a different story base on how we interpret life. Narrative elements are used as a bridge by the directors in their film to create any master plot that is currently known. Any modification at any narrative element used by the director at important moments inside the story can help you portray a different master plot. This used of narrative elements can be best described as an ever changing process that takes place inside an individual’s head. Depending on the individual that may be exposed to those narrative elements can create different meanings. This new interpretation can be different for everyone. We have to be aware that one change in the surface scenery can lead to many ideal outcomes in our minds and that is the main power the audience has.
One of the most powerful gifts that all humans are born with is the gift of free will. When the veracity of free will is questioned, the nature of humanity itself is questioned. What defines free will is the knowledge and ability to choose between different options. The movie Stranger Than Fiction explores these ideas, using a metafictional narrative of the character Harold Crick's life to highlight the capability of free will. Stranger Than Fiction observes Harold Crick's life with lenses of metafiction to illustrate the thematic idea that free will is more powerful than any controlling factors of life.
Man has been said to be the master of their own destiny, but it all leads down to who is master and who is man. Perhaps it is not for us to question fate as it leads to the development of events that is outside our control. The real question that can be derived from the quagmire of philosophical understanding of moirai, is whether we accept our predetermined future and synapomorphy designed for us by a higher power. In breviloquence, the idea of Katharsis that causes the deep sense of pity and fear in the audience would disseminate throughout the viewers, making them feel sympathy, but not empathy. It is important to understand how this feeds the Status Quo, not in a disruptive manner, but in a more subservient nature when one challenges social taboo, the gods, or fate, in ‘anathemic' intention.
...n (Director) mistakenly seems to believe can carry the whole film. On the strength "based on a true story", he has rejected attention-grabbing characters, an imaginative plot, and unforgettable villains.