True Stories is not a movie of a town but yet a movie of people that just happen to live in this little town called Virgil, Texas. True Stories had a lot of unique and bizarre characters that each represents a characteristic of a typical American. There were two main characters, in my opinion, which stuck out from all the others. Louis Fyne who represents the common man, and the very lazy Miss Rollings who represents a very typical yet sad American feature, materialism.
Louis is a working man who is not necessarily a physical specimen and is getting ready to settle down. Problem is he has not found any one to love. Miss Rollings, on the other hand, is a very wealthy, attractive but aging woman. She doesn’t know it in the beginning of the movie but she is not content as being the lazy women she is. She also is looking for love. Even though these characters are very different at first glance, they have one common interest, which is loneliness. Miss Rollings does not realize that she is lonely until she sees Louis’ performance. Louis’ and Miss Rollings’ search for fulfillment all comes together at the end of the movie for a nice typical American ending, happily ever after.
These two characters might have been the main characters but were by far not the only ones that represent a typical American feature. The search for significance and meaning is another American trait in this movie. The cute woman, for example, can not comprehend sadness. Therefore she chooses to ignore all sadness while focusing on all things cute. Then there is the Lying Woman, who personally is my favorite character in the movie. She is apparently dissatisfied with the actuality of her life. She decides to “improve” her life by telling lies to all that will listen. She creates a whole other personality that is rich and vivid but still false.
If you are thinking that there can not be possibly any more American traits in this movie you are wrong. The love for business can also be represented in this movie by the owner of Varicorp, Earl. His love for overall work and business can display what is known as corporate obsession in today’s America. The scene at the dinner table where Earl uses food and china to describe what is yet to come of Virgil and Varicorp displays this obsession.
...ily instead of able bodied Americans (who they would have to pay 5 to 10 dollars per hour) are struggling in the job market. From this it can be concluded that a specific message that both films possess is that change is good and it is an essential element towards development. That is the reason why documentary film maker Michael Moore emphasizes in his documentary those American companies are required to hire Americans. In the film “Pleasantville” a great example of the above theme occurs when Jennifer points out two teenagers as proof that the citizens of Pleasantville have an abundance of potential, according to her they simply do not know any better. Two teenagers can be seen having a conversation, they seem to be engaged in a conversation but it is simply not going anywhere, but as they both begin to get physically closer the girl’s bubble gum develops colour.
of the American Dream. They travel west hoping to escape less than perfect lives and pursue success in
Through the incorporation of dramatic irony, Williams divulges the truth behind Blanche’s charade. As Stanley begins to question about her past romantic involvements, Blanche is quick to fabricate a tale. Her lies slowly gravitate toward depicting herself as the ideal woman. She describes, “But the beauty of / the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the / heart– and I have all of those things” (12-14). Blanche is none of which she claims. She is a woman who struggles to escape her past and fears to be in the light. In addition, she is not physically nor realistically rich in spirit; her past left her in pieces. The audience is aware of her grapple to overcome her ex-husband’s suicide and the usual sound of a gunshot that is heard at the mention of his death. At the present, she attempts to use
Our lives are consumed by the past. The past of what we once did, what we once accomplished, and what we once could call our own. As we look back on these past memories we seldom realize the impact these events have on our present lives. The loss of a past love mars are future relationships, the loss of our family influences the choices we make today, and the loss of our dignity can confuse the life we live in the present. These losses or deaths require healing from which you need to recover. The effects of not healing can cause devastation as apparent in the play A Streetcar Named Desire. The theme of A Streetcar Named Desire is death. We encounter this idea first with the death of Blanche and Stella's relationship as sisters. Blanche and Stella had a life together once in Bel Reve and when Stella decided to move on in her life and leave, Blanche never could forgive her. This apparent in the scene when Blanche first arrives in New Orleans and meets Stella at the bowling alley. Stella and Blanche sit down for a drink and we immediately see Blanche's animosity towards Stella. Blanche blames Stella for abandoning her at Bel Reve, leaving Blanche to handle the division of the estate after their parents die. As result of Stella's lack of support, we see Blanche become dependent on alcohol and lose her mental state. Blanche comes to be a a terrible reck through out the play as we learn of the details of her life at Bel Reve. Her loss of the entire estate and her struggle to get through an affair with a seventeen year old student. This baggage that Blanche carries on her shoulders nips at Stella through out eventually causing the demise of her relationship. As Blanche's visit goes on with Stella, the nips become too great and with the help of Stanley, Stella has Blanche committed to a mental hospital, thus symbolizing the death of the realtionship they once had. The next death we encounter in the film is the death of Stella and Stanley's marriage. Our first view of Stanley is of an eccentric man, but decent husband who cares deeply for his wife. However, as as Blanche's visit wears on, we come to see the true Stanley, violent and abusive.
Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...
The first principle character in this play is Blanche DuBois. She is a neurotic nymphomaniac that is on her way to meet her younger sister Stella in the Elysian Fields. Blanche takes two 2 streetcars, one named Desire, the other Cemeteries to get to her little sisters dwelling. Blanche, Stella and Stanley all desire something in this drama. Blanche desired a world without pain, without suffering, in order to stop the mental distress that she had already obtained. She desires a fairy tale story about a rich man coming and sweeping her off her feet and they ride away on a beautiful oceanic voyage. The most interesting part of Blanche is that through her unstable thinking she has come to believe the things she imagines. Her flashy sense of style and imagination hide the truly tragic story about her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lied not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after. One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faced pain.
The theme the author uses in both the beginning and the ending has something that has to do with Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble, in both physically and mentally. In the beginning, it tells us “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble” (524) as a medical term. But over time, we see that its more on her psychological mind and is more of an emotional state than a medical condition. In the ending the author compared Mrs. Mallard’s death to heart disease “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease of joy that kills” (525). Ironically the story is telling us that Louise was happy that she was free but became dissatisfied about Brently’s return which to her means that he has taken her
One way of characterising the male antiheroes in American Beauty, Revolutionary Road, and Shame is by their family members, the relationship they have with them, and their role within the family. Starting with Lester’s family, American Beauty’s exposition introduces the main characters in the first few minutes and presents the viewer with a series of framed photographs such as the one below representing a perfectly harmonious, put-together, touchy, happy nuclear American family. Broadly smiling, they directly face the camera, of course, in order to remind the world and themselves on a daily basis how ‘normal’ they are. Reality, however, differs very much from what is portrayed in the photograph, illustrated by a regular family dinner in the
Blanche who had been caring for a generation of dying relatives at Belle Reve has been forced to sell the family plantation. Blanche is a great deal less realistic than Stanley and lives in illusions which bring upon her downfall.
...allowed to reach her American Dream without being frowned upon by others. Materialism, and the fears of judgment, are restrictions for these characters that keep them from reaching their true happiness and American Dreams.
In the story, the main character, Louise Mallard, is a woman who is described as a submissive wife who endures the oppressions of marriage to fit in with the societal norms. Louise Mallard, who suffers from heart trouble, is told the news of her husband's death in a railway accident by her sister, Josephine. Her reaction to the tragic news would be considered as appropriate as she openly grieves for him. When
The movie Bridesmaids is about a single woman named Annie, who has very bad luck in her life. Following failure of her bakery, she lost her boyfriend and now she has a job in jewerly store and lives in one flat with brother and his sister. Annie finds a lover called Ted, but she expects something more from him. Annie has one best friends Lillian from childhood. Lillian is engaged and wants Annie as her maid of honor. On the engagement party she meets Lillian’s good friend. Rich, smart and very beautiful Helen. Annie is jealous of her. It started war about who will be the best friend of Lillian. Meanwhile, she meets a friendly policeman, with whom she is experiencing a bit of luck. In the course of preparation of the wedding Annie and Helen are doing it on purpose, but Helen is in Lillian’s eyes the perfect for that preparation and Annie is the ‘‘black sheep‘‘ so Lillian asks Annie if she can stop helping planning of the wedding. The entire main story of her personal journey to the bottom of a couple of steps back is also a story about how to handle disappointment, b...
Blanche uses her fantasies as a shield; and her desires as her motivation to survive. Her fading beauty being her only asset and chance of finding stability. Stella’s relationship with Stanley also emphasis the theme Williams created in this book. They’re only bond is physical desire and nothing at all intellectual or deep rooted. Tennessee Williams exemplifies that their relationship which only springs from desire doesn’t make it any weaker. He also creates a social dichotomy of the relationship between death and desire.
...t eras shows the reader or viewer that the American Dream may or may not have progressed. I would recommend The Death of a Salesman to a friend because I like how Miller shows the symbolism of working your whole life for something, and when you finally achieve it you are too old to enjoy it. I also like how he showed that physical appearance does not always promise you a successful life because the reader can find that out by comparing Biff and Bernard. I would also recommend the movie “American Beauty” because it has deep symbolism, especially when it comes to the plastic bag in the beginning of the film. Yes, the movie may have some overly sexual scenes, but there is a lot of symbolism behind it. The viewer may not get the movie the first time around, but after watching more closely and analyzing the actions of the characters one can say that it was good movie.