Existentialism, as defined by Luke Mastin, “...is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice.”(2008). There are multiple occasions in which an individual can encounter an existentialist situation without acknowledging it. For example, choosing to go to school one day or not would be considered freedom of choice, which connects with the philosophy of existentialism. In the context of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard’s theory correlates to the movie, Before I Fall directed and adapted by Ry Russo-Young from the novel written by Lauren Oliver, due to the many movie scenes that involve an existentialist moment as exemplified through the main character in relation to Kierkegaard.
Before I Fall is a fictitious movie targeted
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Hamann, G.E. Lessing and his teacher of philosophy… Poul Martin Moller.” (William McDonald). Despite being one of the greatest philosophers, Kierkegaard had a simple, boring life which most humans can probably relate to; however, he also used his time wisely which resulted in his rise of becoming a very influential philosopher. Kierkegaard’s contributions to existentialism would be “the opening up by Kierkegaard of this terra incognita of man’s inner life will come to play a major role for later existentialist.” (Douglas Burnham).
The movie’s aspects endure on Samantha and how she chooses the way her life should go. In one of the beginning scenes, after Samantha and her friends leave the party, the head onto the road, slam into a truck and their car flips off the side of the road. The next “day” Samantha wakes up confused as to how and why she is still alive. She then realizes that the same day she lived previously, is again, the day she is living at that moment. Since she knows what is bound to come, she goes through her days events to change the outcome of her day. This heavily revolves around the existentialist philosophy of how an individual has freedom of choice, and Kierkegaard's philosophy of how life is a series of choices with regretful actions bound to come with those
I will be analyzing Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious 6: particularly, the Jump scene. Lin uses pathos in this scene by capturing the emotion of love and hope. The famous actor Van Diesel plays the leading role of a retired professional street racer who also happens to be a leader of a hijacking crew. Diesel plays the character Dominic Toretto. Toretto gets in a mission where he is offered to get involved with the police, which is Ironic since they were trying to catch him in the past for his endless crimes such as illegal street races and car hijacking. In fact, they offered him a great deal; if he and his crew decide to help them capture an unstoppable criminal named Shaw and put him and his crew behind bars; they would erase their criminal records and earn them back their freedom. However, one of the criminal members of Shaw’s Crew is Toretto’s girlfriend Letty, who was supposed to be dead since part 4 of the film’s sequence, after going through a major car wreck where she could’ve been burned inside her car if it wasn’t for Shaw who saved her. As a result of the incident, she had sever...
We are born into this world with the realization that life is hard and that life is like a box of chocolates and it is hard to take it at face value. The majority of our time is spent trying to answer an endless stream of questions only to find the answers to be a complex path of even more questions. This film tells the story of Harold, a twenty year old lost in life and haunted by answerless questions. Harold is infatuated with death until he meets a good role model in Maude, an eighty year old woman that is obsessed with life and its avails. However, Maude does not answer all of Harold’s questions but she leads him to realize that there is a light at the end of everyone’s tunnel if you pursue it to utmost extremes by being whatever you want to be. Nevertheless, they are a highly unlikely match but they obviously help each other in many ways in the film.
Philosophy questions many ideas or statements. For example, the Examined Life asks, does life have meaning? This idea was analyzed, experienced, questioned, discussed and concluded in many different ways. There was a common thread between the Philosophy film, the Apology, our class discussions and the video, Examined life. We often ask ourselves, are we obligated to other people?
How does it feel starting over in a completely new place? In the movie “The Karate Kid”, Daniel, the main character, and his mom moved to the California from New Jersey because of his mom’s new job offer. Daniel started going to school in California and met a girl named Ali, whom he started to like. He started going out with her. Daniel was getting beat up by some bullies; one of them was Ali’s ex-boyfriend. They knew karate very well, but Daniel did not. So Daniel decided to learn karate. Daniel and his mom were living in an apartment and one day he discovers that the handyman at his apartment, Mr.Miyagi, knows karate very well. He asked Mr.Miyagi to teach him karate, and Mr.Miyagi became his karate teacher. It was hard for him to make new friends in a new place and he believed that Mr.Miyagi would be the only best friend he ever met.
Another important existentialist concept is that everyone is completely accountable for his or her actions. “We have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, ...
The clinicians that use the approach of the humanistic-existential model believe that to function properly, humans, throughout their lives, have a need to develop perceptions and beliefs about oneself and to accept and value their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regardless of the consequences (Comer, 2016, pg. 58). Humanists argue that people are born good and over the course of their lives, they seek to fulfill their potential known as self-actualization (Comer, 2016, pg. 58). Existentialists believe that human comes to this world with the ability and freedom to choose their destiny and give purpose to their lives (Comer, 2016, pg. 58). From both perspectives, practitioners consider abnormality to be rooted in childhood as a result of
The Merriam – Webster Dictionary defines existentialism as a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad (Merriam, 2011). In other words, an existentialist believes that our natures are the natures we make for ourselves, the meaning of our existence is that we just exist and there may or may not be a meaning for the existence, and we have to individually decide what is right or wrong and good or bad for ourselves. No one can answer any of those things for us. A good example of existentialism is Woody Allen’s movie, Deconstructing Harry. A man is haunted by his past and his past has followed him into the present. He is a wreck not because of the things that happened to him, but because of the choices he made. He is consumed by regret and insecurity and he tries to find blame in his situation with someone other than himself, however he cannot (Barnes, 2011). Throughout the rest of this paper I will be discussing two of the most prominent existentialists, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
All the characters lives seem to be uncontrollable. One sister is anxiously striving to find a meaningful direction in her life; another is intertwined with her sister’s husband; and Hannah herself is left lingering in the middle. Each man and woman in the film is exposed and defenceless while at the same time being envious and secretly bitter of others. Despite their errors and imperfections we are encouraged to sympathise with all of the central characters; without forgetting that mendacious behaviour leads to treacherous outcomes. I think Woody Allen created this film to express people’s feelings, as the film does not really contain a theme or a storyline; it is mainly about exploration of the characters lives.
Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher in the mid 1800s. He is known to be the father of existentialism and was at least 70 years ahead of his time. Kierkegaard set out to attack Kant’s rational ethics and make attacks on the Christianity of our day. He poses the question, how do we understand faith? He states that faith equals the absurd. In “Fear and Trembling”, he uses the story of Abraham and his son Isaac to show an example of faith as the absurd. The story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac signifies a break in the theory that ethics and religion go hand in hand. He shows how the ethical and the religious can be completely different. “I by no means conclude that faith is something inferior but rather that it is the highest, also that it is dishonest of philosophy to give something else in its place and to disparage faith” (Fear and Trembling, 12).
Existentialism is a very broad topic with no exact definition, and it has been interpreted in many different ways by various philosophers. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, existentialism is defined as “a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad”. Existentialism has influenced many authors works and lives, such as the novelist Hermann Hesse. A particular work by Hesse that was heavily influenced by his existentialist beliefs was his book, Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf
Existentialism is the epitome of the unknown. There is no straightforward explanation of what exactly it is, there is only certain characteristics and behaviors that describe existentialist views. Throughout today’s world, there are examples of it everywhere, it’s found in movies, books, songs, and just people in general. Existentialists are known to think and do for themselves only. They believe that to understand what it means to be human requires understanding of themselves first. Some very well known pieces of entertainment existentialism is found in are: Hamlet by William Shakespeare, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Stranger by Albert Camus, and The Breakfast Club by John Hughes. The Stranger is a book written about a young man whose mother dies, which soon leads him to becoming acquainted with the feeling of not caring about what his actions do to others or himself. The main character Meursault starts helping his friend Raymond, carry out ways to torment his mistress. Out of nowhere while at the beach, Meursault shoots Raymond’s mistress’s brother. He is thrown into jail and tried, but he seems to not be affected as much as he should about his actions. He first finds it hard to live without cigarettes, women, and nature, but he soon finds out he doesn’t need any of those. After being sentenced to death, he is suggested to turn away from his atheism but later realizes that human existence has no greater meaning. This realization and acceptance is what truly makes him happy (Camus). Next, The Breakfast Club is a very relatable movie about high school students suffering the consequences of their actions in detention. The kids are all of ...
From this point on in the novel, Sam must relive the day of her death for the next seven days, causing her to come face-to-face with themes such as love, loss, friendship, sacrifice, and redemption. As Sam and her friends practically rule the school, albeit harshly, the themes of bullying and acceptance also come into play during Sam’s transformative seven days. Also in the prologue, Sam mentions the most memorable aspects of her short life. The last thing she remembers about the day is laughing with her friends while they were driving in Lindsey’s car, leaving the party and seeing a flash of light, something running in front of the car, and then blackness. Though people always say they remember loved ones or
An existentialist represents their choices throughs their actions, opposed to with their words (Corbett). Therefore, someone who expresses the ideals of existentialism may be a threat to society because of their differences in morality compared to others. In The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Meursault was always looking to find meaning in his life because of everything that was happening to him at the time; and that is a key characteristic of someone embracing the ideals of existentialism. Sadly, through Meursault’s search for his inner meaning, he ended up taking the life of another man with very little realization of what he had done. Throughout The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Camus portrays
Existentialism is defined as a philosophical movement that human beings are completely free and responsible for their own actions. Existentialists will try not to cause waves and remain completely uninvolved with anyone because they do not want to hurt anybody. There is absolutely no such thing as an existentialist because he would have to be so uninvolved to the point where he would not be able to live at all. Although the two stories: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and The Stranger by Albert Camus are very different in approach, their endings are similar in that they both support the basics of existentialism.
Finding the underlying values common to existentialists allows an understanding of the basic substructure of existential philosophy. There is a se...