Forrest Gump Essay (Spring 2020) Film Studies
The mystery about life is that it is in a broad spectrum, unpredictable. One moment, everything may be going well, and in the right direction as every human being wants but then out of the blue, and due to the unknown and vagaries of human experience, the entire world crashes. What does this mean? It means that it only requires a click of a second, and some unpredictable events turn your life to either the positive or negative extremes. In the movie, Forrest Gump, released in 1994 and produced by Robert Zemeckis, the idea of the unpredictability of life and how life is full of uncontrollable events that in a broad scale, place human beings in the horizon of uncertainty. Forrest Gump starts and ends with a feather floating in each of the respective scenes to symbolize the unpredictability of life and the change brought by uncontrollable events that people experience in life. Besides, the feather at the begging and the end of each particular scene shows in the wake of life’s unpredictability; human beings use different approaches to explore it and make the best out of it either out of luck or out of little planning.
Brief navigation through the plot confirms that the titular character by the name Tom Hanks experiences different circumstantial events in his life as he navigates through decades of American history. To the best of his efforts, Hanks tries to keep relationships, adore his loved ones, and significantly do his better to make the best out his experiences. As a result, fate drives him into some of the best events in his life where he manages to realize success in different measures as he tries to better himself. Just as the feather travels through the air without an ideal destination and just lands in different places at different times without an explicit purpose, so is Hanks’s life. Does the audience identify with the narrative? That depends on how one understands the artistic meaning of the feather in the film; people have different approaches in comprehending works of art.
As highlighted in the introductory part, the feature is a metaphor for the unpredictability of life and the general uncertainty of events that shape an individual’s life. In the face of history and specifically American history, Gump doesn’t seem to have a clear and planned path to personal success. He expects life to offer him leeway to personal glory. As an individual, Gump does not subject his life to any plan, and if indeed he does, experience does not allow his plan to actualize them as intended. He chooses to let luck take a toll on what he engages in with the hope of finding amity and success in mere it. Just as the feather moves in the air to different places without a specific means of transiting through history and without particular security measures, so is Gump’s life. For instance, Gump confirms later in the film that his entire life is anchored on luck, “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze….” However, the uncertainty of his life does not hurt her pursuit of success but rather attracts good fortune, and he finds himself in the right place at the right time. As a result, Gump helps positively in writing American history.
Regarding the apparent theme of human destiny, the unpredictability of life events is further confirmed by the feather at the end, whereby Gump’s successful experiences in life force end with a show of immortality of human beings. Although he lives a successful life, the death s of his mother, Jenny, and Bubba bring new dawn where he manages to discover the existence of his son, thus signifying a new phase in his life, a period of bliss amounting to a life well-lived. Although the feather navigates through different ages, different circumstances, and different environments, it transits through time and history. The narrative of the feather symbolizes Gump’s story of a life because he also manages to navigate through the era of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, experiences the technological advancements associated with the space-race. He further goes through a series of numerous activities that shape his life to the point where he confesses a life well-lived.
In conclusion, the discussion above establishes that the feather in the film Forrest Gump symbolizes fate, life’s unpredictability, and the uncertainty of the events that shape an individual’s destiny. From the beginning, the feather does not have a clear purpose for moving around, and it does not have a precise mechanism of moving around. It only depends on the wave of the wind for propulsion. With the metaphor of the feather at the beginning and the end of the film Forrest Gump, it can be deduced that there is no fabulous destiny end result in people’s life but just a conglomeration of a series of uncertain events knocking at individual’s doorsteps. Indeed, life is like a floating feather; hence nobody knows where it will end.
Work Cited
Zamackis, Robert et al. Forrest Gump. Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount, 1994.