Good Will Hunting and The Truman Show are similar Existential Stories? How about dem' apples?
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
How About Them Apples? Good Will Hunting and Truman Show are Similar Existential Stories?
Good Will Hunting and The Truman Show are similar Existential Stories? How about dem' apples?
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I believe that love is the main goal of self definition. When you truly know yourself, you know what type of person would compliment you the best. You need to know your strengths and weaknesses. The person you love, is most likely someone that you share a majority of these strengths and weaknesses with. The similar strengths, will make both people better. You, can also work together to get better at some categories where you are weak. But, the ultimate thing is knowing what you can handle and what you want to handle. You need to know your own personal limits, and know yourself as well as you can, before you can consider your tolerance for someone else's weaknesses. Once, you recognize that you are a flawed individual, you can accept somebody else's imperfections. Not all weaknesses need to be shared, but you need to know how different you can be. It is not necessary to love someone that is an exact clone of you, but you need to know where you are able to compromise. If, you want to love somebody that is very different from you, you have to know that from inside. That is a call that you need to make, and only you can know. If, you need to be with someone who enjoys and does the same thing as you, you have to know that from within. If you are willing to compromise and learn from each other's different tendencies, that is something that you have to know. Once, you have defined yourself enough, you are able to find true love. If, you do not know yourself well enough, there is no way to know who exactly you are going to love. This is why teenagers get in relationships that often don't last a long time. Teenagers don't know themselves well enough to get along with another person for a long time. A teenager doesn't know who they are looking for, because they don't know themselves. Adults, have had more time to find themselves, and learn about themselves. They do however make mistakes, because they misjudge themselves or never took the time to truly find out who they are. You only know yourself well, when you take the time to think it through. When you know yourself, you can find the person you love and stay the distance with that person
ReplyDelete-Alex Maresco
Although that was very cute, and the ladies will love it, I have to disagree with Alex on this one. In both movies, the protagonists leave their absolute systems in search of love, but also in search of freedom. In The Truman Show, he uses Sylvia as a motivation and as someone to remind him that he might just be in a world made for him. This is what makes him suspicious at first, when the people take her away and she tells him all she can before being kicked off. The time Sylvia and him sneak away and meet at the beach is one of the only times in his life that he is not under the complete surveillance of the producers. I believe it was this brief moment of freedom that motivated him to start looking closer into his life and realize the absolute system that his life is. I believe having complete freedom is what causes a person to find out who they really are. This ties into the idea of existentialism that connects the two movies, and how a person can decide exactly who they are by the decisions they make, and can escape any absolute system if they have the motivation to do it. Truman only got to meet Sylvia on a few short occasions, so I do not believe I would consider what he felt for Sylvia to be love. He enjoyed the time he spent with her because it was the only time he felt freedom. In conclusion, I do not believe love is the main goal of self definition, but that freedom is.
Delete-Eli Moskowitz
(P.S. The names in both the movies were very creative (Truman: True Man; Cristof: CHRIST of; Will Hunting)
I also believe that one cannot find love until they have found freedom within themselves. In this way, I agree with Alex's point that once a person knows their strengths and weaknesses, they can find a person who compliments them well. Also, connecting to Alex's point: "A teenager doesn't know who they are looking for, because they don't know themselves." This is very much connected to freedom as well. As children, we are in the absolute system of a family. An existentialist would say that a child could absolutely leave their family, and be a free person. In this case, I would say that a teenager could find true love.
DeleteI have not seen Good Will Hunting, and I was absent that day, so on that point I cannot comment. I don't think love is the main goal of self definition. Think of it this way; love is a game that people play. Nothing can ever last in life, and if it does, it will end by some cause of nature. I believe the main goal of self definition is living a life of whatever path you deem to be right for you, then one day when your a wrinkly mean old man or woman, you can look back on everything. Your strengths, your flaws, what sucked, what was truly amazing, and reminiscing about old friends. I believe there is more to life than what meets the eye, love included. I have also not seen any movies to back this up. This is purely what I believe in. -Jesse Nathan
ReplyDeleteAlthough Alex makes a good argument concerning love being the main goal of self-definition, I believe that the goal of self-definition cannot be seen in a single ambition; a person’s goal is to find purpose by any means necessary. In “The Truman Show” Truman begins to try to find his long lost love, Sylvia, as he becomes “disenchanted” from his current world. Although as the movie progresses Truman becomes less and less focused on love and more focused on escaping his current world. His true goal is to find purpose in his life. A person can find purpose in several different ways, whether in a profession, passion, or journey. Love maybe found on the way, but it is not the focus of life at all points. People want to accomplish something that will last long after they are gone, something that has meaning. Love can satisfy that need, but it is not the only way of doing so. Alex had a good point when he stated “You need to know your own personal limits, and know yourself as well as you can, before you can consider your tolerance for someone else's weaknesses”. Self-definition can only be found after you are truly in sync with yourself, especially if you are looking for what you want to do with your life, not only who you want to spend it with. Alex also makes a good connection when he states “A teenager doesn't know [what] they are looking for, because they don't know themselves”. Teenagers have not discovered themselves completely, and what they do know is still subject to change, and this affects not only relationships but their other lifelong commitments. You cannot decide what you want to accomplish with your life until you know yourself completely. In the end, love is important, but it is one corner of a much larger picture called purpose.
ReplyDelete---Jarod George
I do not believe that love is the main goal of self definition. It seems to be a motivation for characters in movies like The Truman show and Good Will Hunting to define themselves. However, self definition is about coming to terms with one’s past and discovering one’s identity, which includes one’s character, personality, abilities, and interests. Finding love is only a part of one’s identity. In The Truman Show, Truman tried to find his love, Sylvia, despite others trying to manipulate his actions engineering events to keep him from leaving Seahaven. While doing so, he discovered the artificialness of his world. Morisseau is correct in stating in her essay that Truman goes into the real world “in an effort to define himself [...] and potentially reunite with Sylvia.” When he found out he was living in a false world, Truman exited the set to define himself. However, this does not mean that Truman did not discover parts of his identity while at Seahaven. Christof might have made sure Truman was afraid of water, but he couldn’t prevent Truman from becoming determined to go to Fiji, nor could he prevent Truman from persevering through the storm to get away from Seahaven. Truman discovered these key parts of his identity while trying to escape his world. One might argue that trying to finding love led Truman to discover these character traits; however this is not the case. Truman was able to show his persistent nature by not allowing anything to stop him from reaching the truth. Had finding love been Truman’s main goal, he would have never gotten married to Meryl; instead, he would have shown some determination to find his lost love. This means that Truman’s main goal was finding the truth of his world and his role there, not finding love. Because of this, I agree with Jarod that “love is important, but it is one corner of a much larger picture”: finding one’s role in life.
ReplyDelete-Bidisha Sen
Holy banana peels and sock puppets! I do not think my simple-minded writing style can compare with the ones prior. Yet I shall continue because I am relentless. I believe in what Alex "Big Daddy" Maresco said, except that defining oneself via love does not start until a certain age has been attained. Existentialists believe that you are on a sole quest to define yourself until the very end, where everything you have done up to and including your death IS who you are and what your purpose is (or was, since you're dead). Pyschologically, it makes perfect sense that teenagers should have trouble discovering who they are or what they are appreciative of. A famous psychologist named Erik Erikson argues that the basic conflict of adolescence (years 12-18) is "identity vs. role confusion." All people go through this phase, but everyone handles it a little differently. Discovering yourself is an ongoing quest that eventually leads to the next step, which is love. Truman left the show because he realized what he was created to be, which was his current definition, and went onto the next step by seeking out the one whom he loved. Love begins to take a major role post-adolescence, which is semi-malleable since everyone experiences development at a different pace, and this experience of attraction is also touched upon by Erikson. He poses the idea that young adults (years 19-40) have developed enough self and personal identity, and now seek to form intimate relationships. Failure results in loneliness and isolation, whereas success leads to strong relationships. Since the first parts of self definition were finished in the adolescence, the quest for love is the more evolved and sophisticated step forward in defining yourself until the very end. The main character from "Good Will Hunting," Will, discovered his current definition and went onto the next logical step as well. For these reasons, how one seeks love varies and defines oneself in an indefinite modus.
ReplyDelete~Andrew "Andrew" Winter
I believe that finding love is the key to self definition, but I think that even after you have found love you can still find more pieces of yourself. In his response, Jarod said "Although as the movie progresses Truman becomes less and less focused on love and more focused on escaping his current world." I disagree with this. While Truman was sailing away from the only place he's ever known he pulls out a piece of paper with many magazine clippings of pieces of different women's faces. Ever since Sylvia was forced to leave him, Truman had been trying to recreate her face, buying magazine's every morning to look through in hopes of finding her face. Her recreated face was the only thing Truman brought with him when he tried to escape.He found his values while finding love. In the movie Good Will Hunting there is a similar occurrence when Will also decides to leave the only place he has ever known because according to Lauren Morisseau the author of Character & Choice, "He had to go see about a girl." Even though I have not actually seen Good Will Hunting, I believe that in both that movie and The Truman Show, the main characters knew who they were, and therefore knew who they wanted to be with. Alex said in his response "You need to know your own personal limits, and know yourself as well as you can, before you can consider your tolerance for someone else's weaknesses." I agree with his statement. Truman knew who he was in his world, and he knew what his weaknesses are, which made him feel as though he was ready to go to Fiji to find Sylvia.
ReplyDeleteIt was on his journey to find Sylvia that he discovered his real identity as a 24/7 movie star. If he had not fallen in love with Sylvia while in high school, he might have gone on forever thinking nothing was wrong with his life.One of the key points of existentialism is that you have not truly discovered who you are until you die. Falling in love is a key to self definition, once you know yourself so well that you are ready to accept someone else. But once you fall in love, you and the person you are in love with are committing yourselves to each other, finding the rest of yourself through the other person. Truman fell in love with Sylvia and was ready to do anything to find her. He believed that finding her would help him find the rest of himself and he was right. When he chose to leave the movie set where his whole life had taken place with his famous last lines "In case I don't see ya, could afternoon, good evening and goodnight!" he left knowing he still had parts of himself to find. Parts they lay with Sylvia.
A real world example of finding love as they key to self definition and an important part of existentialism is gay people. They have broken free of the absolute systems and found themselves through who they love. If they didn't believe love would help define them, why would they fight so hard for gay rights laws? If they truly believe a key part of them lied within the other person they loved they would fight against the absolute systems saying they can't marry each other. And they do fight, creating a great example of existentialism. They are creating themselves, the same way all of us are, through the choices they make, defining their values, finding themselves and falling in love along the way.
~Kali Mondor
Self definition is about finding one’s role in life. Everyone’s role in life is to love and be loved. It doesn’t have to be a romantic love either, it is simply to find and accept love. Who you love is who you are. In a way, we can categorize people by who they love. If you don’t find love you will be stuck in the absolute system and have no purpose in life.
ReplyDeleteTruman is married to Meryl. Truman loves Meryl. Meryl does not love Truman. Truman realizes this and sets out to find real love. Like many people, Truman took the easy way out and told himself he loved Meryl. He thought he knew himself and in the end, realizes he was too afraid of his past (losing someone else he loved- his dad) to put his place in society. Truman wants to show himself he is capable of being loved. To define himself he needs to have a reason to break free from the absolute system and that is what love is for. Not once in the movie do I recollect Meryl or Truman tell each other, “I love you.”
Jarod said that, Truman’s “true goal is to find purpose in his life. A person can find purpose in several different ways, whether in a profession, passion, or journey.” Per say your purpose in life was to have a specific job. What is the point of that if you cannot communicate with the rest of the world? Who are you helping? Deep down inside everyone craves acceptance. You can’t find love in a hobby or job. There is no one loving you back. Love is alive and therefore requires live, breathing people (or animals per say) to carry on. Not an idea like a hobby or job.
Once again, a person can only have purpose in life if they are loved. We live to love and be loved. Love is the reward for defining oneself.
-Moriah Calfin
I do not believe that love is the main goal of self definition, although I do believe that love is a strong factor to self definition it is not the only factor. Self definition is discovering all parts about yourself and not just about one other person. One cannot define everything aspect about themselves through another individual. In the “Truman Show” Truman’s suspicions start when his love is taken away and she claims everything is a lie. Truman sets his eyes on finding his true love and as the movie progresses Truman starts to discover the lack of authenticity of the world he exists in and sets his goals to discover what is happening. Truman’s goal throughout the movie is changing from finding his love to trying to escape his world. He believes that discovering his real life is more defining of him then finding his true love. This shows that other aspects like your interests and goals in your own life are what really define who you are. The direction you point yourself in, the role you give yourself as a person is what defines who you are.
ReplyDelete-Brian Mitchell (the better of the three)
No, love is not the main goal of self definition. Like what Brian Mitchell says "...I do believe that love is a strong factor to self definition..." I agree with this statement. I don't think that love is the MAIN goal to self definition, self definition is just that defining yourself for who you truly are. When you find something that you are interested in that normally will show you some part of yourself that you didn't know about, therefor its partially defines you. I haven't seen the movie "Good Will Hunting" but in "The Truman Show" Truman was able to define himself after he lost his first true love Sylvia. Because of this he spent most of his life trying to find someway to find her, like cutting the faces out of magazines to recreate hers. Also trying to find some way to get to Fiji, to find her. But on the other hand he got married and gain many other hobbies that defined who he was. Though it may appear that love took a big part in defining who he was it wasn't all love that defined him. It was his earnest drive to find the woman he truly loved to be with her. In some of the final scenes Truman is on a boat and this may have terrified him but his drive to find this person was so great he conquered his fear. So in the end no, the main goal of self definition is not love but it is, defining your self for who you truly are.
ReplyDelete~Molly k. McCarty~
Although I believe that love can play a role in self definition I do not believe it is the sole purpose. In finding love you are recognizing compatibility with a certain person which I believe can often lead someone to identify certain interests or beliefs they had not recognized before in themselves, but there are many more aspects of self definition. I would describe self definition as understanding your purpose in life, not necessarily a role in life you think you should play, but what role you aspire to play. In order to determine purpose, you must first know your interests, desires and goals which can be influenced by anything or anyone in your life. It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone you love that can make you recognize important pieces of your identity, which leads to the conclusion that love is not the key to self definition. Although love can play a large role in someone’s life, and I agree with others in that someone you love can affect how you interpret your strengths and weaknesses, they are not the only person who can affect you. In her essay Morriseau states “Interestingly, Truman has long desired to escape from his small-town life, as evidenced by his obsession with the Fiji Islands. A girl that he loved once, named Sylvia, was said to be moving there..” although Truman is motivated to leave Seahaven because of Sylvia, he ultimately makes the choice to exit the studio for multiple other reasons. When talking to Cristof before he leaves Truman states “You never had a camera in my head.” after Cristof claims he knows Truman “better than he knows himself.” This statement shows that Truman does not agree that anyone else can know him, or what he wants. Only he knows his self definition and is ultimately convinced into leaving Seahaven based on his disagreement with Cristof’s arguments, not only because of Sylvia. Truman recognizes after this conversation, the idea that only he can control his own life, he is not recognizing that he ultimately wants to find love. The existentialist themes in this movie suggest that Truman, upon leaving the studio, is recognizing individuality. In the definition of individuality it is stated that “your personal definition as an individual is essential to your life” upon recognizing this, Truman understands that it is he who defines his purpose, he does not leave Seahaven because someone else defines his life.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that love is the main goal of self definition. It is definitely a goal in self definition, however there are many other pieces to the puzzle of what makes up you as a person. For instance what you like to do, why you do certain things, and how you act towards others all are part of defining yourself. Merely defining yourself through your love for one person would make you very two dimensional. And if you define yourself through another person, how does that person define themselves? Do they too define themselves by their love with you? If they don't have other things to define them, the person who you use to define yourself would be defined as... you. Having other things in your life that you can define yourself with allows you to become a three dimensional person who does not rely on others to tell them who they are, what they like, and what they are going to do. Such is the case in "The Truman Show". It is true that his love for Sylvia was the catalyst that began Truman's search for self definition, however it was not his main goal. Once Truman begins to reveal the artificiality of his world, his main goal switches from finding Sylvia to escaping Seahaven. Truman believes that if he escapes Seahaven and figures out what is and has been controlling his life, he will be able to define himself better that just finding Sylvia. Sylvia, or any love, helps to define you. But that is not the controlling factor to who you are, just a small piece. We need other things than love to tell the whole story of what makes us who we are.
ReplyDelete-Alex Girard
Love is the main goal of self definition. Loving yourself and your life is one of the most defining things in a humans life. Romantically speaking, love is also self defining. Kali states that "It was on his journey to find Sylvia that he discovered his real identity as a 24/7 movie star." and she is spot on. Truman truly loved Sylvia. Before he even discovered that his life was all just a show, he knew he loved Sylvia more than Meryl. Meryl was just an actress on "The Truman Show", she did not truly love Truman, she did it for that act. Truman was not self-defined before he went on a hunt for Sylvia. The closer he got to finding Sylvia, his true love, the closer he got to discovering a free, uncontrolled, self-defined life. I also agree with Mariah. Mariah stated that "not once did they say I love you" this is completely true. Throughout the whole movie neither Truman nor Meryl said "I love you" to eachother. This is another example of how Meryl was only with him for the TV show. Truman had no other choice but to be with Meryl because she was always just forcing herself on him. Truman would have never chose Meryl to be in a loving relationship, therefore he was never self-defined as a person on his TV show because he never had free will to choose who he loved. When he had his one opportunity to be with Sylvia on the beach, she was taken away from him before she revealed the reality of Truman's actual life.
ReplyDeleteAnother movie example of discovering self-definition by love is "The Garden State". The main character of "The Garden State", Andrew, discovers love with a girl named Sam and a life he wants to live by the end of the movie. Andrew lived his life by choices he never agreed with and choices that never defined him as a human being. For example, Andrew is put on medication by his father that leaves him with no emotion. By the end of the movie Andrew choices to be taken off the medication. Another example is when Andrew shoved his mother gently as a child. He did not mean harm, but it left his mother paralyzed. He was sent to a boarding school by his father because they thought Andrew was dangerous. His mom dies years later from drowning and Andrew is forced to return to his town. He takes a break from his movie star life and meets a girl named Sam while he was back in his home town. Sam is eccentric and Andrew secretly loves that. Andrew starts to make his own decisions that define him as a person when he falls more in love with Sam. For example, he stops taking medication and has a long talk with his father about his mother's death. Also Andrew has to return to California, but choices to stay in his home town with Sam to discover the person he really is. I believe love plays a huge role in self-defiance and can truly change the outcome of your life.
Contrary to Jarod's analysis, I believe that love is the center, not "the corner", in the picture of purpose. Truman wants to escape the world that he lives in only to find love. The purpose that Truman is looking for in his life is love. Truman has the desire to leave his world, because he knew that somewhere was the woman he loved. Truman knew himself well enough to know that he needed to find this woman. He understood what he needed in his life, and what he needed was his actual love, Sylvia. In the television world, Truman knows that something is wrong because he does not truly love Meryl. He was supposed to love Meryl, but he knew that something was wrong. He knew himself well enough to know that Meryl wasn't the correct person for him. He knew that the only person he loved was Sylvia. His purpose is lost, because of the flaws in his love life. His love drove him to figure everything out. Love is clearly the main way Truman defines himself.
ReplyDeleteI think that finding love is part of self-definition. Defining yourself involves discovering your identity, character, abilities and attitudes, typically in relation to other people, objects and situations. It takes years and years of exposure to different experiences to really begin to understand yourself. For example, meeting new people allows you to rank and analyze yourself according to societal norms apparent in other personalities. If you never met anyone, how would you be able to interpret your activities? You wouldn’t be able to classify your actions as good or bad, or define yourself as either category. Finding love involves meeting many different people, ranking them against your personal scale of “good and bad” that you attain over years of growing up and discovering yourself and others. Self-definition requires you to interact with others. As you grow and change, you finally come to a point where you feel you understand yourself and how you fit into the world around you. Then someone comes along and changes all that. Finding love allows you to continue self-definition, past the point you come to on your own. Loving someone changes your outlook on many things, changes how you interact with other people and objects, and alters your perspective on certain scenarios. Finding love is just another branch of self-definition, one that allows you to continue to prosper and grow. The definition of you is always changing, and loving someone provides yet another opportunity for that change. In “The Truman Show”, for instance, Truman believes he has everything figured out. His whole life makes sense, everything feels right, everything fits. His father dies, and he gets a little shaken up, but life goes on and he figures everything out again. Then, Truman meets Sylvia. He finds love. And his world begins to change. The definition he tried to set in stone, of himself and of his life, is changed and altered until he has to get out in order to keep expanding his knowledge of himself. Finding love brought about a huge change in his life, and once he pursued that love, Truman found out more about himself than he had in 30+ years. Once Truman leaves Seahaven, or the definition he thought he knew, for love, he reaches a deeper understanding of himself. Self-definition is about discovering how you fit into the master puzzle, and finding love is just another step in the journey.
ReplyDelete-- Emma Fleuette
Out of all the analyses written above, I agree with Jarod the most. Self definition is not simply finding love. Though it may partially consist of that, self definition is something that people can never truly obtain. Self definitions is always changing because we as humans always want something more out of life. In "The Truman Show" the goal of Truman starts with finding love, but then turns into finding a way off of Seahaven Island. Self definition is a life goal, but once that goal is reached, what next? Once Will Hunting finds Skylar is his life over? No. He then would have had other ambitions and those new goals would rule a part of his life until he accomplished them and more goals would arise and the cycle would continue until he died. All of self definition can not be boiled down to just love, but in almost everybody's life, it is at least one of the things that define them. For the other infinite things that define a person, they are case sensitive. For Truman, there is his curiosity as a young boy wanting to explore the world. If Truman would have been able to explore the world, there still would have been other parts of himself that are yet to be defined. Self definition is not just as a child or as an adolescent either which is where I agree with Alex Maresco saying “A teenager doesn't know [what] they are looking for, because they don't know themselves”, but nobody truly knows themselves fully. Love is not all of self definition. Emma said it best as "finding love is just another step in the journey." The whole existence of every single person in the world is just finding something they want to achieve, and doing it. No more than that.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that love is the sole purpose of self-definition, however I do believe that it is a factor in self-definition. I mean, I'm a teenager and I don't know what true love is, and like what Alex "Big Daddy" Maresco stated "A teenager doesn't know what hey are looking for because they don't know themselves", the goal of most humans is to achieve their primary goals and objectives. I believe that on you journey to achievement you will find love on our way, this is best exemplified in the movie "The Truman Show". In the movie Truman spends his life living in a fake world, but as the movie goes on Truman starts to spend more time getting out of his "perfect world" and on his journey he meets Sylvia. Truman's main focus was getting out of Seahaven and upon his absence he would travel to Fiji to find Sylvia. Although i agree Truman had a thing for Sylvia, i do no believe what he felt was love. Truman was more focused on escaping Seahaven than finding his "true love" Sylvia. Truman finally escapes and as he is leaving he states "Incase i dont see ya, good morning, good afternoon, and goodnight" and achieves his goal of escaping his fake life. AND THEN HOPEFULLY HE GOES AND MEETS SYLVIA AND HAS A GOOD MORNING A GOOD EVENING AND A GOODNIGHT WITH HER BECAUSE THIS WAS A GREAT MOVIE LOVE, AFFECTION, TRUMAN. YA :):):);););) <3<3<3<3
ReplyDelete