Fragile

Author's Note: This is the day one of The Truman Show. I know that this is posted a little late, but I had to make some finishing touches. It is kind of a ranting of my thoughts on the message of the movie, which I thought was quite interesting. I really enjoyed this movie a lot and actually found it one of my favorites  The second piece for this I am working on writing a story from the perspective of my life if I was finding that everything I had known my entire life was actually scripted. I think that it should be a fun piece and interesting, and I will post it soon!

Is what we do every day and every hour and every minute of our lives able to be called reality? Or are we being tricked into believing that it is? Those questions are the life of a man named Truman, born on live television to live a life inside a Hollywood movie set, evident to the entire world that his life is a TV show -- except for him. The people he meets, the town he lives in and the woman he even falls in "love" with is scripted and somehow filmed for the world to see.

Truman though, is not like the overly happy and eccentric actors upon the show, he is feeling trapped and depressed in this town, and wants to get away. Only all his attempts were failed one way or another. There was only ever one person who tried to reveal to him the truth about his life -- a woman named Sylvia that Truman was starting to fall in love with. She too, was whisked away from his life; they said she was going to Fiji. Evidently enough, Truman also had wanted to go to Fiji.

Finally Truman realizes that he must escape this town, this life full of fake and unreality. He is finally able to escape from the cameras and just try to get on with his life. Of course, his attempts for this are also tried to be stopped. Truman sets off upon the ocean, finally overcoming his fear of the water since his "dad" was drowned by a storm on the same waters. Surprisingly, even the tremendous storm created by the directors does not stop Truman from continuing to sail across the ocean. Then he hits the wall.

This part of the movie I believe is the most full of the symbolism for the message that the movie holds. It is here that Truman hits the wall, then seemingly walks across the water and up some stairs that lead to a door, hidden within the sky painted containment wall. Just before he walks through the door, a voice, almost seeming like God to Truman, starts to talk to him. He tells Truman that he has been there ever since he grew up, he watched him grow up into the man that he is, and that this world and life that Truman is leading is the best that anyone could have. He is protected from the dangers of the world, there is no evil inside this world, how could he possibly want to leave?

Truman does leave. He walks right out the door within the wall and there is nothing and no one that could have stopped him. This is like life. You live, protected and sheltered from your fears and weaknesses as a child, harbored by your parents and your innocence. For Truman to escape this, he is moving on to the part of his life that he must make his decisions, and his mistakes. He can no longer be protected by the scripts and the sets. That is the way that life is supposed to be. When Truman traveled across the ocean -- a symbol of the journey of one's life -- the directors did everything they could to try and stop him. Although it was hard for him to keep going, he still kept going. This is what we must do with our lives. If we are presented with challenges, we must get through them and continue our lives.

Advancing from your innocence to taking on your own responsibilities and living on your own is a tough thing. Truman was no longer being directed, and he was forced to make his own decisions as soon as he stepped through the door in that wall. The point is, when you have no one to direct you, you can do anything. "Life is fragile", is what Truman said during the movie. He is right, Life if fragile, and it is us who decide whether or not we want to take the risk of possibly making a crack in our fragile lives or not, and this is what makes life interesting. If no one was able take this risk, Life would be nothing but a boring shell. Truman was brave enough to take those risks, and we must also be this brave.