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Truman Show Shared Humanity

Decent Essays

Yehuda Berg, a clergyman, stated this about shared humanity, “In truth, we are all part of the team of humanity. And as such we are all obligated to share ourselves and our talents for the sake of the team.” When Berg says talents, he is referring to the things that make us human. These characteristics are the shared humanity traits. Berg is making the case that, as humans, we should use the shared traits to help contribute to humanity. Shared humanity can be categorized into in six different areas; relationship, loss, morality, choice, emotion, and survival. These categories are shown in the books How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, I am Legend by Richard Matheson, and the film The Truman Show. The book, How I Live Now, has two examples of …show more content…

The first is morality and the second is choice. The whole film The Truman Show is about a man named Truman Burbank, who is the star of a reality show that he does not know he is on. He was adopted by a film company after he was born and that film company made a television show about his life. Everyone in Truman’s life are actors and the world he lives in is a huge television set. This is known by the viewer at the first scene when the main actors and director are being interviewed and the director states, “No Scripts. No cue cards.” (Niccol) when referring to the show. This is an example of freedom morality. Truman, not knowing he is on a television show and not knowing he is being filmed every second of his life, lives a life like being in jail. It is as if everyone in the world is watching him in jail. This portrayal of morality makes the viewer feel sorry for Truman. The next example of the shared humanity categories is choice. During the end of the film Truman finds a wall of the set. He follows that wall to a staircase that leads to an exit out of the set. Once Truman finds the door, the director of the show starts talking to Truman over a loudspeaker about the show and tells Truman that he is the star of the show. Truman decides to leave the set of the television show and be a member of the real world outside of the set. This is an example knowledge choice. Truman had the choice of either staying on the set or being integrated into the real world. Truman chose the real world. Truman wanted to seek the knowledge of having real friends and family instead of the actors who were pretending. The examples of morality and choice through the entirety of The Truman Show were seen by Truman leaving the television show. The previous examples are two more categories of shared

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