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Socratic Wisdom In The Film Fargo By Joel Coen

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The movie Fargo, by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, presents the story of a car salesperson and a habitual con who prefers other people do his work. Jerry hires incompetent thugs to kidnap his wife in part of a grand plan, which includes fraud, Conn game, and deception. Viewed on the lenses of stoicism and Epicureanism, jerry evinces more Epicureanism characteristic and fail to meet the threshold that Socrates gives for knowledge and wisdom.
The essence of Socratic wisdom is acknowledging that one does not know anything. In the movie, Jerry pretends to know everything and has all things figured out only to be outwitted and manipulated by the father-in-law, and after being failed by incompetent thugs hired to kidnap the wife. It is clear that Jerry is not wise and did not appreciate that he knows nothing when dealing with the father in law. In the movie, Jerry on several occasions failed to acknowledge that he had inferior knowledge compared to those he was dealing with. In a scene where he is on phone with Riley Diefenbach …show more content…

In the film, Jerry has no control of himself, his thoughts or anything going around in his life. He harbors negative thoughts. Moreover, when he goes to his friend at the garage who vouched for Grimsrud, he is unable to get access to the duo and thus totally lost control of the situation even though he had changed his mind. Epicureanism is also evident in the scene where Jerry shows frustration when removing ice from the vehicle. He was frustrated because he could not be like his father in law and upon realizing that he has been outwitted by the father in law decide to channel his frustrations on the windscreen. Jerry starts slow using his ice-scraper as he removes ice from the windscreen, however as he continues, madness erupts in him and be begin and he starts beating the windscreen in

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