Since its release on December 22nd of 1967, the Graduate has become an iconic piece of cinematic art. Like most art, the Graduate has the curse of being easily misunderstood, and is much deeper than one would recognize at first glance. With a haunting soundtrack from Simon & Garfunkel, including the well-known song “The Sound of Silence,” the tone of the movie is extremely melancholy and saturated with the uncertainty and sadness of someone who is unsure of what their future holds.
Ben, the main character, has recently graduated and is facing the great unknown of life after college. Ben is an extremely relatable character, especially to people with introverted tendencies, right off the bat. His avoidance of extravagant parties and attention is comical, at least to me, because of how true it is in my own life. He has an endearing awkwardness to him, but it can also feel quite uncomfortable to watch him struggle through social interaction if one suffers from secondhand embarrassment. The crippling uncertainty about what he wants to do with his life causes Ben to spend his summer laying in the pool, drinking heavily, and engaging in an affair with the wife of his father’s business partner Mrs. Robinson.
Ben’s affair sends him into an intense bout of alienation, making him easily irritable and distant from his parents. When he does interact with them, he faces their poking and prodding to figure out if he is going to continue his education by enrolling in graduate school. With
It's found that he has a rare blood disease and has less than a year to live if he goes without treatment. Ben, with his fragile home life and lack of love, decides to keep this to himself and deny treatment. He decides that he’ll live this year to the fullest, knowing he’s dying. Growth and change are the largest parts of the book Deadline. The main character changes his perspectives and grows his views, whether it be acknowledging others' feelings or changing his
This chapter begins in a rough spot, Ben's mom needs to explain to the boys their need to catch up in school, and how they would accomplish the task. Ben speaks about wanting to know his mother's decision, however at the last minute; he becomes worried and decides he would rather not hear the verdict.
As Benjamin transition out of adolescent, he constantly struggles with the decision regarding his future and to find the best way of becoming a man. Ironically, it is his relationship with Mrs. Robinson that helps Benjamin transformation
His son Ben has leaved the home and went to the east side by himself. The father wants him come back and finished his college degrees. In his own imagery, his son is doing all those kind of bad things with his scoundrels friends in the east side. As he pictures it, “Ben, now lies around on the floor in lots and four-story walkups on the Lower East Side, eaten by lice and aphids, smiling pot and having visions of the Oneness go the hip life”(280). This quote shows Parker worries about his son is doing something bad, but he could not do anything to help him. Parker as a father wants to help his son solve the problem. But on the other hand, he is a old man that has an different opinion to solve the problem compare to a young adult. His temperament can show by his habit and as he said “I can’t go into any kind of barbershop. It has gotten so I have an actual, physical need to have my hair cut in that kind of barbershop”(281). He is the kind of man, when he got used to something and it’s hard to change it again.His stubborn temperament foreshadowing what he will do when he meets his
The novel can be explains as Janie's attempt to find voices, that can speak for her. The conflict of being silenced by another is most illustrated in a relationship between Janie and her husband Jody. Janie leaves Jody because he wont listen to her. As you can see as Jody's power gets bigger and bigger, he forbids her to talk , Janie's silence increases power. This silence function has the process of gaining self awareness for Janie.
"Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me," says Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman). The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols in 1967 is an influential satire/comedy film about a recent East Coast college graduated who finds himself alienated and aimless in the changing, social and sexual general public of the 1960s, and questioning the values of society. The theme of the film is of an innocent and confused youth who is exploited, mis-directed, seduced (literally and figuratively) and betrayed by a corrupt, self-indulgent, and discredited older generation (that finds stability in “plastics”) that I found to be quite clear and understanding, while also capturing the real spirit of the times and allows America's youth to perceive onscreen
When he gets off the plane at the beginning of the movie, he is moving in the opposite direction of everyone else. This indicates the fact that Ben feels isolated from society and has not yet found his role in it. Everyone around Ben has such high hopes for his future, but he does not seem to care about it. Instead, he is going through life the opposite way of others after graduating from college by lounging by the pool all day and being involved with a married woman. Ben is very weak and indecisive and cannot seem to figure out what he wants to do with his life since graduating. All of the choices that Ben makes seem to be very irrational and not very thought out. For example, he drops everything and goes to Berkeley in hopes of marrying Elaine after only going on one date together. Also, he brushes off advice concerning his future like when the guy at his party tells him that he should invest in plastics. However, he seems to have no interest in becoming successful or going to graduate school as he appears to be lost and traveling in the wrong
The main character Charlie, is a young teenager who is shy, socially awkward, and an introvert who is ready to begin his freshman year of high school. Charlie struggles with his new transition from middle to high school, and he is uncertain what to expect as he prepares to enter this new life event. His social circle is minimal to non-existent while he is dealing with the suicide of his best friend earlier in the year. In addition, he also seems to struggle with the loss of his aunt who was killed in a car accident when he was a young boy. While he does appear to have good family support with his mother, father, older brother and sister. He also appears to
Paranoid Personality Disorder is an additional disorder for Ben. Paranoid Personality Disorder is a type of disorder where they constantly believe that people are trying to hurt or harm them. This influences the way he interacts with those around him, unable to form close relationships. Although he lives in a safe and comfortable neighborhood, he “admits to carefully checking all of the locks on his house at night” because the young people in the neighborhood dislike him, therefore, may break into his house. He also disconnects his phone at night to avoid potential threatening calls. This shows that even though he should feel safe and secure because of the paranoid personality disorder that he may be diagnosed with he is worried and always alert.
Benjamin learns a great deal about life and society through the story. Such as learning to deal with judgement and comments from society and also learning more about himself as a person. This made me realise that I should also focus less about what others judge me on and focus more on how I can challenge myself and grow bigger as a person.
Frontline followed the guideline of identifying their sources throughout “The Silence.” Frontline identifies the main narrator who is also the reporter on the story at the beginning of the documentary as Mark Trahant. Mark gives background information about him like how he is a journalist, and he wrote about Native Americans for most of his career. Another example of how Frontline identified their sources is the victims would recount their pasts as children being abused while their name would appear on the screen. They identified the priests by showing an old picture of them on-screen, and the narrator introduced them verbally.
Ben appears to have a strong identity, however, he tends to get addicted and internalise fanatic pursuits - which leads to him manipulating himself. We all have our own opinions and decisions, right? In The Wave, Ben is referred by his colleagues as “naïve and over-zealous.” (p.6) He is completely different from all the other teachers and most of the students are very interested in his teaching styles. The novel says “If they were studying the political system, he would divide the class into political parties.” (p.5) This highlights the fact that Ben isn’t fearful of what others would think of him; he has his own way in teaching his students. Furthermore, Ben’s wife, Christy states that “Ben was the kind of person who got involved in things. Not just involved, but utterly absorbed in them to the point where he tended to forget that the rest of the world existed.”(p.31) This demonstrates that Ben can get addicted to things very easily: showing that he is essentially manipulating himself. The Wave initially makes Mr. Ross a worse teacher and a worse husband. He becomes self-centred, focused only on the glory he will achieve when he sees how The Wave improves his students' academic performance. However, the experiment and his strong identity eventually humbles him and makes him understand the important principles in life. This strength is highly relatable in society today: teenagers should be able to resist any manipulation whether it is from someone close or even the public. This novel talks about some of the vital values in life; clearly proving that The Wave should win the literary
Many people have no idea that a song can be a wonderful poetry which is called lyrical poetry, but all songs are not poems. In this amazing poetry “the sound of silence”, both the authors Paul Frederic Simon and Arthur Ira Garfunkel ironically implied their frustration on the modern world and how it’s changing. In 60’s this lyrical poetry has left an indelible mark on pop culture. This poem’s lyrics has a disturbing picture of a society which work with materialism and self-absorption. The poem uses the imagery of light and darkness to show how people's ignorance and enthusiasm to destroys their ability to communicate even on simple levels. Day by day people are becoming more secretive about their life and forgetting being social on some level. Moreover, the narrators strongly felt these changes and transformation could lead us to a robotic life. The Sound of Silence" contains numerous poetic elements, including figurative language devices, rhyme scheme and tone. Throughout this poem, narrator is addressing the dark site of the society, people and how its leading them in to a false dilemma.
Motionless, like a wounded prey cornered by its predator, I finally understood the definition of fear. To be victimised as the villain of the story. To be discriminated as the plague behind all creation’s problems. To be stereotyped as the face of the oppressors. The fear was so overwhelming and overpowering, as if my stomach was rotting away, with whatever dignity that remained of me being eaten by blood-thirsty parasites. I could only pray for the Earth beneath me to crack wide open and swallow me into an eternal abyss- away from this trembling terror.
Like myself, Ben was a person who wasn’t born with a silver spoon. He didn’t grow up with many opportunities. Ben grew up poor and was raised in a single parent household (BenCarsonForPresident 3). There were many times been felt like the statistics were not in his favor (BenCarsonForPresident 3). Ben once said I came from a school in Tulsa, I came from a single-parent home and I thought I was the admissions mistake (Samuels 1). As a child Ben’s frustrations started to get the best of him. His anger begin to spare out of control. Ben described his violent behavior as a child as uncontrollable pathological temper. (Glover 2). Throughout Ben’s childhood there were many accidents. The accidents were proof of how bad Ben’s anger really was. For example Ben once tried to hit his mother with a hammer because of a disagreement they