existentialism
...s no intent or purpose but achieves a grand destiny through random tragedies. A birth defect allows him to run fast and gives him a future and a hurricane propels his shipping business. He barely has an IQ higher than that of a plant and yet he influences culture and history (Elvis and President Kennedy) without even knowing it. However Forrest’s foil, Lieutenant Dan believes he has a destiny and nothing just happens. Nonetheless his destiny of death on the battlefield is ruined when Forrest rescues him and he is driven to despair. It is only when he gives up this quest for destiny that his soul becomes at rest. Another position of existentialism is that the Universe is absurd and there is no higher meaning that can be found outside of man’s existence. There are no ultimate meanings, only existence. Therefore man’s search for meaning in a higher purpose will always end in atheist despair. Forrest’s girlfriend, Jenny, and Lieutenant Dan are examples of this. They both face Kierkegaard’s “sickness unto death” or despair and contemplate suicide. The movie Pleasantville is an allegory portraying society’s desire self-actualization of individuals, the third concept of existentialism. We see traces of it in the notion that we, individually, are the final authorities for value in our own lives, in our emphasis on experience over reason...