Group Members:
Tyler Paul, Nathaniel Stack, Harjot Gurm, Stephen Coleman
The Truman Show - Hero’s Journey/Allegory of the Cave
Directions: Please write a short essay explaining the hero’s journey in The Truman Show, and explaining how the story is influenced by the Allegory of the Cave. Essays should be 3-5 paragraphs long and contain a minimum of 450 words.
A man born into a reality show about himself, Truman Burbank lives in “Seahaven Island” a world created to revolve around Truman. This movie follows an ancient story path called the hero’s journey. During the journey the hero encounters a few main events including the Departure, and the Crisis. The movie also follows with one of Plato’s stories called the allegory of the cave. The allegory begins with three people are chained in a cave. They can only see the shadows cast on the wall in front of them. One of them breaks free and sees the real world. When he returns to tell the others they don’t believe him and are hostile toward his ideas. The Truman Show follows the hero's journey because of the Departure and Crisis events, and is influenced by the Allegory of the Cave through the cave, chained men, and shadows.
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The Truman show follows the hero’s journey through the main events of Departure and Crisis.
Truman Burbank was born and raised in Seahaven Island and lives an ordinary life with his wife, Meryl Burbank. He was set to marry Meryl, but in college he fell in love with Sylvia. After meeting Silvia for the first time, he was dedicated to go to Fiji and find her. Towards the end of the movie Truman escapes the cameras following him in his basement to go after her. At the end of his departure he is told by the director that he should stay because it is better in Sea Haven. This is the crisis in the journey, because everything he had worked for would have been for nothing. Through the departure and the crisis the Truman Show resembles the hero’s
journey. The show was heavily influenced by the allegory of the cave. Truman is put in Sea Haven, the cave, from birth and doesn’t even know that an outside world exists. In this instance Truman resembles the chained men. Contrary to the original allegory of the cave Truman is the only one kept from the outside world; this makes him the sole chained man. Truman is told by a girl named Silvia and other people from outside the show that he is in a show. He doesn’t believe them and continues on with his life, then in the end he finally puts it together and realizes they were right. Due to this he assumes the role of all three of the chained men. The people inside of the dome are the shadows, they are what Truman first believe are reality. The Truman Show follows the allegory of the cave almost exactly. The Concept of the Truman Show is based around the allegory of the cave and the hero's journey. While the movie does not follow either of these exactly, it incorporates elements from both into it. If the audience has the knowledge that both of these techniques are being used in the movie they would be able to identify them where they are given, such as Truman being an unwanted child which shows that he had a “strange birth”, which is the first part of the hero's journey in which the hero has some sort of strange birth. The director chose to film the movie like this because of how well the plot fit into the Hero's Journey/Allegory of the Cave. The Truman Show is based off of elements of the Allegory of the Cave and the Hero’s Journey.
The movie is very similar to the Bible's Book of Genesis. In the Book of Genesis, God created Heaven and Earth and everything in it including Adam and Eve. In “The Truman Show” Christof, the producer of the show creates Seahaven Island, a constructed fake reality town with perfect neighbors which is home to Truman. It is thought of as a perfect town where nothing can go wrong just like the Garden of Eden in the bible. Christof is seen as a “God” like representation in the movie who has all the power. The whole town is made up of actors portraying real people living in a community. It is really all just an illusion but unbeknownst to Truman he perceives it as reality. It is Christof’s vision
The Allegory of the Cave has many parallels with The Truman Show. Initially, Truman is trapped in his own “cave”; a film set or fictional island known as Seahaven. Truman’s journey or ascension into the real world and into knowledge is similar to that of Plato’s cave dweller. In this paper, I will discuss these similarities along with the very intent of both of these works whose purpose is for us to question our own reality.
The Truman Show directed by Peter Weir, is about Truman Burbank who is a simple man, living a predictable and ideal life in a world that revolves around him. He was an unwanted baby who was legally adopted by a television corporation. Ever since he was born his every move has been monitored by thousands of cameras and analyzed by an audience without his knowledge. His life is on display for millions of people around the world to watch 24 hours a day. He is the star of a reality TV show, The Truman Show. There’s just one thing, he is completely oblivious to it. Truman also believes that his friends, coworkers, strangers, and loved ones are who they say they are; however, they are just all actors hired by the creator of the TV show Christof, who uses these actors to control Truman’s life and prevent him from figuring out the dishonesty of a “real life.” As he
Thus, when he saw a light fall from the sky and he heard the director’s voice on the radio, Truman began to become suspicious. He remembered Lauren, an actress who had told him that it was just a TV show and so, he went to find her. He travelled across the sea, talked to Christof and then climbed a flight of stairs in the sky, escaping into the outside world. Unbeknownst to him, Truman Burbank's whole life has been the subject of a hugely popular 24-hour-per-day television show entitled “The Truman Show” (Propagandee, 2012).
The movie, 'The Truman Show' is about a reality television show that has been created to document the life of a man who, adopted at birth by a television network, is tricked into believing that his life, his reality, is normal and the environment that he lives is real. It is set in a town called Seahaven, which is essentially a simulation of the real world similar enough to the outside world that the viewing audience can relate to it. The town is a television studio inside an enormous dome in which the weather, the sun, the sky, and all the actions of the citizens are directed by a team of special effects people. The entire show is directed and produced by the creator of the show, Christof. Truman Burbank, the star of the show, is the only one who doesn't know that he lives in a giant studio and is surrounded by an illusion of reality. The entire world watches Truman's movements twenty four hours a day, seven days a week through the use of thousands of miniature hidden cameras.
One of the most interesting features about today’s media is that it connects many individuals in perplexingly short amounts of time. Through constant streaming, society has become extremely vulnerable by allowing themselves to be engrossed by the presented reality. The outcome is unsuspecting citizens that are mentally deformed by the adverse lies told to them. Gary Shteyngart exploits this reality through his successful novel, Super Sad True Love Story (2010) in which he creates a fictional world focusing on consumerism and commercialism. This fictive work creates an environment of secrecy in which the government actively displays more cover-ups and less controversial activity. Similarly, but to a much larger extent, Peter Weir’s film The Truman Show (1998) presents a city consisting of theatrical illusions surrounded by
How does Weir/Ross demonstrate that a world controlled by the media can only be dystopian in nature.
Truman does not have any recollection of what real life or the outside world is. Truman family consists of cast members of the television production ‘Omnicom’ who are paid to act as ‘his family, friends and the citizens of Sea haven’. This leads on to the choices he is able to make.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is the pinnacle of philosophy, many future philosophers based their own philosophies from Plato’s Allegory. A simple Allegory questioning truth and reality has also shaped current pop culture. The past shapes the future, it is surreal knowing how a single man from the past with his love for wisdom influenced modern films. The Allegory is a simple story that makes people question their truth and their morals in which they live by. The Allegory tells a story of a prisoner who has escaped the “fake” reality and has seen “truth”; the informed prisoner attempts to return to his fake world to enlighten other prisoners of their ignorance. This same plot concept can be seen in the movie The Truman Show.
Imagine what it would be like to live in a "Perfect" world. "The Truman Show" is a movie where Truman Burbank is born and raised in a television set. His family and friends are all actors. His life is all being controlled and directed by Christof. He is being recorded and watched by millions of people 24/7. This movie is also known to give examples of existentialism such as, existence precedes essence, Truman being given a purpose by Chirstof, , fear, Truman comes to the realization and goes mad, and freedom, when Truman makes his own decisions.
Truman is alienated from society from birth, adopted by a television corporation and brought up in an 'idyllic' world where he is 'protected' from the harsh truths of the real world. Marxist theory would use the show's director Christof as a metaphor for the powerful ruling class, the one who calls the shots and plays the part of creative 'father' of the show, a wealthy TV exec using another for financial gain and worldwide fame, and of course, television ratings.
In The Truman Show, Truman discovered the meaning of freedom and broke away from all the lies and machinations and became truly free. He made one of the toughest decisions to leave behind his old life and start a new life on his own terms. Life is full of tough choices but it is better to choose for yourself and live with the consequences than have someone else decide your life for you.
The Truman Show takes place on a massive, life-sized stage with Truman Burbank as the protagonist. It is a contrived world where all interactions take place effortlessly from the day he was born to his ultimate realization and escape. In his life, there was no true privacy. Every moment was recorded as a source of reality entertainment for the masses of the outside world, and if anyone from the outside or on the set were to intervene and try to disclose the actual reality of his situation, they were quickly suppressed and/or replaced. This, coupled with many other obstacles, made it very difficult for Truman to break the illusion. Despite the many failures, he eventually came to spot the inconsistences himself (with a little help), leading
Truman, the main character of “The Truman Show” exists on the set of a television show,
One of the major differences between the film and the novel is the depiction of the delusional image of reality. However, it still manages to bring forth the dystopian image of both their Utopian societies. In The Truman Show, life is a real life play in an environment that provides comfortable lifestyle and happiness at the cost of reality. The producer of The Truman Show, Christof states, “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented”. This message is the underlying theme in the story and as such, will foreshadow Truman’s acceptance of a delusional reality in the film. Meanwhile, in the film everyone except for Truman is acting and not living an authentic life. There is no sense of “real”; no real affinity, no secrecy, and no faith, all of which Truman is blindly unawar...