Essay On The Matrix: Following The Crowd

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The Matrix - Following the Crowd

The world is not what it seems. Everything that once was a fact, a belief beyond doubt, is really a part of a fictitious universe known to many as home. In truth, humans are disconnected from the real world and are living in a virtual reality. This is the world of The Matrix. This virtual reality of the Matrix is not far off from the world we live in, as is described by Lacan. Basically, we live in a world based on rules and order which disconnects us from what is real. In the movie The Matrix, the training program exemplifies symbolic order; how it is obeyed, embraced, intruded upon by the real, and what happens when it is challenged.

Symbolic order dominates the entire …show more content…

Businessmen, Teachers, Lawyers, Carpenters...the very minds of the people we're trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will that they will fight to protect it."

This is stressing that every individual person, with their social identity, is a part of the symbolic order, or "the system" as Morpheus calls it. Like everyone in the world, they have created their identities based on this system and are not willing to give up the symbolic and disrupt their lives. Humans are so reliant on language and symbolic order that to try and pull them out of it and towards the real will cause them to "fight to protect it [symbolic order]." In other words, they will violently reject the real; they will use the abject and abjection as "safeguards" to protect themselves (Kristeva …show more content…

The only way that Neo can get away from the symbolic order is to fight the agents, or the Law. Morpheus explains how "Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought an agent has died. But where they have failed, you will succeed." As Morpheus is explaining this to Neo, his glasses reflect two separate images of Neo with the agent pointing the gun at his head. Morpheus's glasses are reflecting the choices Neo has. Earlier in the movie, when Neo was choosing between the red and the blue pill, Morpheus's glasses showed two reflections-one of Neo and the red pill and one of him with the blue pill. Whereas that scene represented the two choices Neo had, this scene represents how Neo has no choice at all; the only way to escape symbolic order is to confront the

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