What Is The Theme Of Forrest Gump

People see movies to get a momentary escape from reality and be engaged in a fictional perfect world or other genres that may snatch their emotions. The emotions seen in the audience are created by using ethos, logos, and pathos throughout the movie. Ethos is what portrays the credibility throughout the film such as using famous actors or placing historically accurate scenes in the film. Logos is represented by the logical scenes throughout the film such as the fame of the film including its rating and awards or the historically accurate scenes representing the time the film was set in. Finally, pathos is what grabs the emotions of the audience from the dramatic scenes throughout the movie. In the movie Forrest Gump, Robert Zemeckis portrays ethos, logos, and pathos several times throughout the film to pull the audience in and leave them as if they were living in the film.

Even as the characters experience discrimination, they see that not all of the whites hate them. Issues of race are not as big as they were in 1932, but the issues share a fair amount of similarities and differences.

People tend to find meaning in all aspects of life, and they rely and examine symbols to gain further insight into their life. Symbolism is prevalent in numerous films, however, in the 1994 film “Forrest Gump” by Robert Zemeckis intertwines symbolism to introduce the general themes of the film. In the film “Forrest Gump” the filmmaker focuses on the interesting life of Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is an innocent honest man, who like many, has overcome adversity to achieve success. This same adversity helps Forrest and his general outlook on life. Through all these obstacles, he is an all star football, receives an honorary medal in the Vietnam war and sets up a successful shrimp business. As the film progresses, Robert Zemeckis, does an excellent job of adding important symbols that help the audience gain a better understanding of the characters and the film itself. This adversity and perspective on life is personified through objects such as the box of chocolates which represent uncertainty, the feather which appears at the beginning and the end and furthermore, the concept of running is a repetitious symbol in the film, all have important roles in shaping the lives of characters portrayed in the film.

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

Forrest’s mother thinks an education is the primary source for living a stereotypical normal life. Forrest has a totally different outlook he sees school as a playground for bullies even though he seriously believes everyone, no matter their intelligence level, deserves and has the right to an education. Thankfully, in America we have many rights and freedoms. Yet, our freedom is not free. With much respect, our freedom is earned by the bravery of many men and woman. The effects of the Vietnam War can be considered a theme in the movie, Forrest Gump. This film portrays the Vietnam War with a child-like, simplicity outlook but contains much deeper meaning like thinking about life, death, and destiny. While at war, Forrest saved Lieutenant Dan Taylor’s life, yet Lieutenant was not satisfied. He believed it was his destiny to die which put many things into perspective for Forrest such as life and death, especially after Forrest saw his best friend, Bubba, die at war. Forrest Gump stated in remembrance, “My mama always said, dyin’ was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn’t.”

Forrest Gump is set in Georgia in the early 1960’s, when Forrest is sitting at a bus stop, with flashbacks recounting the time back to his birth in 1942. Because Forrest is sitting at the bus stop telling his life story to anyone who stops to listen, very little of the film takes place in the present tense; rather, the plot takes place in the past as Forrest recounts his life experiences. Throughout the film, many populist tropes surface within Forrest’s life, showing how Forrest lived in a time where he was unknowingly exposed—and even contributing—to a populist way of life that challenged the way average people viewed society in the United States. Forrest Gump integrates the tropes of populism with the genres of romance, war, and adventure, sending a powerful message to viewers of how they ought to view the world, at a time when corruption and impurity dominated society.

As referenced at the beginning of the paper, Forrest's participation in the Vietnam War is the most significant example of sociological imagination or social web as C. Wright Mills sometimes called it. What were the happenings in Forrest's personal life that placed him in the midst of a major societal event, war? After graduating from high school, Forrest was approached by an Army recruiter giving him some literature on the Army. Forrest

The Vietnam War divided the country and led to several americans searching for not only their identity and morals, but the morals of the nation as a whole. Many people questioned what good the fighting was for and saw more and more news coverage about the horrible failures of the War leading to a mistrust in the U.S. government. In Bobbie Ann Mason’s book, In Country: The Story of an American Family, Bobbie Ann Mason tells a coming of age story about Samantha Hughes who searches for understanding and meaning in a War that has affected her family and country greatly. Using dialogue and plot construction, Mason successfully examines the changes in morality towards violence and war.

   Society can be, and is, corrupt in many different ways. Within our lives we are subject, but not limited to, corruptions within religion, corruptions of morals, and corruption within the government. Voltaire, the author of Candide, and Robert Zemeckis, the director of "Forrest Gump", both use grotesquely naïve protagonists to illustrate their view of the world in which they live. Nevertheless, Candide and Forrest, surrounded by a corrupt society, and bombarded by various character defining events, are able to come to a higher understanding as to their philosophy of life.

Moving into the 1970s and 1980s which were two of the most decadent and confused decades of all. Forrest Gump depicts a nation torn into thousands of tiny pieces. After one of the bloodiest wars that America has ever seen those who made it out were faced with not only the physical scars and disfigurement but also the burden of the mental scars that no one could truly understand except those who had gone through the trauma as well. On the other side of the coin you have the draft dodgers and conscientious objectors who chose to immerse themselves in the dark and dangerous world of hardcore drugs where cocaine was king and alcohol could numb all the trauma of the world.

The movie Forrest Gump played by Tom Hank is a story about Forest Gump a simple man and his journey through life. Gump was simple minded and lived his life by a set of values taught to him by his mother (Sally Field). While Forest sat down waiting for a bus, he tells his story. Forest takes part in several defining historical moments such as the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal and also had painful experiences. Despite his setbacks and naive nature, he struggles and triumphs in everything he did. Forrest developed a good self-esteem and self-concept with the help of his mother’s observation, love, and sincerity. With his mother and Jenny’s encouragements, he was able to overcome his physical handicap and become an outstanding runner among other things. This movie is an example of the how a child’s mind developed through series of stages. This paper shows the following key points; intellectual disability, Erickson’s intimacy vs isolation, low self-esteem, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.

In “Finding Forrester,” there are so many people that kept pulling Jamal Wallace down because of his skin color and because he was not rich like the kids at his school. The life of Jamal Wallace was filled with many conflicts in the movie “Finding Forrester” because he struggled with people constantly pulling him down in his daily life. Jamal was always nervous in the movie so whenever he was sitting, standing, in the house, or walking down the street he always had a basketball with him bouncing it.

Watching Forrest Gump for the first time I feel that the movie has a little of everything in it, from action and war to love and romance. For one man to overcome so many hardships and live a life full of love and happiness it is inspiring. Each character had something that reached viewers. From Jenny to Lieutenant Dan they all had something that made them easy to connect with. Even the people that sat on the bench next to Forrest created interest; they listened and were in the story for us, but were not truly part of it.

Ever since I was born, it never came to me that we were racially different. All I thought was that, all human being are the same all across the world. It was not until I watched the movie Forest Gump by Tom Hanks that I realized that there were some people who were racially different. The movie appeared to have been dominated by a number of racism instances. Here is a summary of the ways in which the movie revealed racial differences and my impression on the characters.