The way we as humans live is by
choices, as we live, more and more choices of our pasts pile up and the human
mind is burdened by any guilt from those choices past.
Even if we have made some problematic choices much earlier in our lives,
like some characters in Hills Like White Elephants, Interpreter of Maladies,
and The Dark Knight Rises, we still are able to bounce back and live our lives
to the fullest as well as making ourselves better people. These two works, Hills Like White Elephants
and Interpreter of Maladies, along with The Dark Knight Rises, identify
multiple themes, all leading to one combined idea, the fact that all of these
pieces explain the way people think. The
main theme between these two pieces is people choose their own destinies, no
matter what direction life takes, people always are able to choose their own
path.
Hills Like White Elephants
exemplifies how people have the right to choose the way that their world works,
even if they are pushed into a situation that could ruin their lives, they
still are able to make their choice. The
American, one of the main protagonists in Hills Like White Elephants, states
that, “'…the train is coming in five minutes.'”
(Hemingway 117). This explains
that the train, as a symbol for a choice made by both the girl and the
American, is nearing and that a situation is about to become something real and
that the climax of their journey together has come to an end. Neither the American or the girl have
anywhere to hide from their impeding decision because “…on
this side [of Ebro] there was no shade and no trees and the station was between
two lines of rails in the sun.” (Hemingway 113). This shows the crossroads between
their decision, one side being one of the train tracks and the other track
being the opposite, they have no shade, no trees, nothing to shield them from
God’s will or the decision that they will have to make whenever that may
happen. Any sort of decision they make
is final and that no matter what, there is no turning back once they make
it. Problem is, the American is trying
to make the decision for the girl, yet the theme declares that she must make
the decision for herself. When she yells
at the American to “please please please please
please please please stop talking,” this makes her the dominant one of the two
lovers. While the characters in Hills
Like White Elephants have decisions to make, Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das in Interpreter
of Maladies have already made their decisions that have changed their lives for
the worse, sadly not for the better.
Even though Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das have
made decisions in their lives that they now regret, they are still able to
control what goes on in the present.
While Mrs. Das has her secrets, she still confides in Mr. Kapasi and
later is disappointed when he asks her if “it is really pain [she feels], or is
it guilt?” (Lahiri 73). Even though Mrs.
Das gets angry with Mr. Kapasi after this, she chose to tell him, yet in doing
so, she opened the Pandora’s box that was her suppressed guilt. When this happened, he lost any and all lust
and yearn for her as well as gaining all of the guilt that she laid out when
she told him about her affair. After
telling Mr. Kapasi her secret, he “felt insulted” and wondered why she had told
him that information. Mrs. Das chose to
tell him since she felt that an interpreter like Mr. Kapasi could help “heal”
her ailment, even though it was not much of an ailment to begin with since she
chose to cheat on Raj, her husband, and never tell him that one of her sons is
illegitimate. Problem is that these
choices may not ever seem to go towards anything good, always the decisions
made blow up in the faces of those who actually are involved. Any problems
between characters are always created when these decisions become something
that may ruin the lives of one or both of the people involved. The Dark Knight Rises, a movie directed by
Christopher Nolan, definitely emphasizes the meaning of choosing one’s destiny.
Destiny is one of the main themes of
the movie, The Dark Knight Rises. Since
this movie has many twists and turns, the choices made by specific characters
like Bruce Wayne/Batman and Catwoman, determine the fates of every citizen in
Gotham City. This movie creates so many
situations that are unavoidable, yet with the personalities and ideas of
characters like Bane, many flaws in humankind are shown through his madness and
the choices he makes. In my mind, these
unavoidable situations, like when Bane fights Batman over and over happen, you
need to look back over the movies that came before, Batman Begins and The Dark
Knight, and see the decisions that Bruce Wayne made to begin the chain of
events that follow until the end of the trilogy. Bane almost uses a nuclear weapon on Gotham
City and kills everyone, but Batman saves the day in the end, sacrificing
himself because it was his choice to die the hero instead of living long enough
to see himself become a villain in the eyes of the people. In this choice of sacrifice, Bruce Wayne,
commits suicide by nuclear bomb to prove that it takes only one man to save so
many and to explain how with money and power come great responsibility, even
though he had lost his parents to a petty criminal so long before any of this
occurred. The way that these choices
effect all of the characters in the story is all conglomerated into the climax
when every character comes together and battles or when Bruce Wayne climbs out
of the colossal prison that Bane had put him in. The way Bruce Wayne trained every day and
night just to get back home was a choice above all choices, when a man goes
from his lowest low to the top of the world.
The combined ideals of all of these
stories show how much our daily choices affect our futures. People today do not think before they act on
the most part, thus creating such turmoil later in life. Even if certain events remain unnoticed,
people will always be able to choose what their lives become. Problem is, people love to choose the wrong
path, even though it may not be good for them, just so they can fit into the
society around them. Hills Like White Elephants, Interpreter of Maladies, and
The Dark Knight Rises, all create one generalized idea, no matter what
direction life takes, people always are able to choose their own path.
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