The Village
I had to cut today's discussion short because we needed to edit our letters, but many of you didn't get to finish arguing your points.
Here are a few questions I'd still like to discuss via the blog (feel free to deviate and create your own questions if these don't do it for you):
One of the elders declares that "The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe." Does this hold true in The Village?
Did the village elders succeed in their original mission?
Does society create evil or control the evil that rests innately in individuals?
Do The Village and The Crucible essentially tell the same story?
Where do cowardice and courage collide?
Noah? Ivy? Lucius? Kevin the park ranger?
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Here are a few questions I'd still like to discuss via the blog (feel free to deviate and create your own questions if these don't do it for you):
One of the elders declares that "The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe." Does this hold true in The Village?
Did the village elders succeed in their original mission?
Does society create evil or control the evil that rests innately in individuals?
Do The Village and The Crucible essentially tell the same story?
Where do cowardice and courage collide?
Noah? Ivy? Lucius? Kevin the park ranger?
Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted by Kristin L | 12:01 PM
16 Comments:
I fully agree with Kaitlin's ideas about the superficial love without honesty in The Village. I mentioned this in class, though I will mention it again for the sake of this blog. John Wooden, basketball coach for the UCLA Bruins once said, "sports don't create character, they reveal it." I think the same can be said for situations of adversity. Everyone has within them the capability to be brave and when we are confronted with adversity, courage and cowardice collide. It is at this point that the strength of our character is revealed. There is good and evil in everybody; the trick lies in learning to control them. When Ivy acts out of love, she is given the motivation to act with a strong will.
I agree with Kaitlin in the fact that if the elders mission was to run and hide from the real world then it was a complete success. However, if their mission was to create an innocent society without hurt and suffering, they completely failed. Near the end of the film one of the elders realizes the truth, “We cannot run from heartache,” he says “… heartache is a part of life. We know that now.”
As for Noah, I believe he was not trying to hurt Ivy in the woods; he was trying to protect her. I think that Noah knew the village’s secret all along (if you noticed the woman with the baby in the old photograph, I think that is Noah.) Since Noah knows that the people of the village are afraid of the “one we no not speak of,” I think Noah does not want her to leave and is trying to scare her back to the village.
I also agree with Spencer when he says, everyone is capable of being brave in trying moments; this is where cowardice and courage collide. Everyone has the choice to run and hide or to stand and fight.
In moments of adversity, the problem is choosing when it is wiser to fight or wiser to run.
I think that the quote about love is true in The Village in the sense that the awe at it. The reason the village was created was to try to protect the children and the parents were doing it out of love. I think that a lot of the actions taken in The Village were out of love but a lot of times that creates problems. I don't think that the elders succeeded in their mission because it just created more problems and you can't have true happiness or love when there are lies and fears involved. I think that Noah was a bad person because even though he doesn’t think the same way as everyone he knows what he is doing and know the consequences of his actions. He knew what he wanted ( Ivy) and he knew how to get it. I also agree with yesterday’s discussion that Noah was trying to hurt Ivy because he has realized even after he has tried to kill Lucius Ivy still loved him and didn't want him.
I agree with Kaitlin and Spencer about how there is good and evil in everyone and the elders tried to hide the evil but they were unsuccessful. I think that a person’s love controls their good and that controls their evil, if that makes sense. If they are truly in love and they are loved back they will make the right choices and very little of their ‘red’ will show through. But if they love someone and are not loved back in the same way, like Noah, their love will turn into jealousy and their good will let the evil take over because they want revenge on who or what is depriving them of being loved back. If you love someone enough I think you would be able to let him or her go if they were happier somewhere else. I don’t think that Noah was capable of that mentally and all the anger he had took over him and his ‘evil’ shown through.
Is love not the basic goal in life? The world does move for love, but I don't think that the elders acted in love when they created the village. I believe that their actions were selfish and they were blinded with pain when they decided to create the village. Who ever gave a person the right to hold another being's entire existence in the palm of their hands? The elders actions, even as they were reacting to deaths (which is ironic), take away others lives. The younger generation will never get to experience the life that is today; as Mrs. Kakos said to me, maybe they are living in a dead society, one that lived a long time ago and whos time is up. Where they really better off? There is still crime and pain and death. For example, take the opening scene, there will always be death and pain, but a person must experience pain to be able to move on and enjoy the good things that happen in life.
I don't think that the village elders succeeded at all. What innocence existed in the village they created? Certainly not their own. I also think they were just plain selfish, as I said before. They were trying to protect their children from pain, but what could be more painful than learning of such a lie?
I agree with what people have said about love, and where courage and cowardice collide. Also, Jordan, I really like your thoughts about Ivy. They really opened my eyes to an entire other way of thinking about it. Nice arguments! I also have some questions:
-Death seemed to be a significant motif to me. The opening scene. Skinned animals. Also, dead trees were shown often and when Ivy is running from "the creature," a shot zooms in on her feet running on dead leaves. What do you think is the significance of this motif (if any)? Why is the opening scene in place and what role does it play?
*Quick question
Did anyone notice that one of Ivy’s escorts into the wood was Kitty’s husband? What is the significance of this?
I think that in The Vilage, love is one of the most powerful forces, if not THE most powerful force. It is the force that drives Lucius towards ivy, it is the force that drives Noah to kill Lucius and it is the force that drives Ivy to go and retrieve the medicine for Lucius. So i think that love is what creates hope in this story, and hope is the reason they created this whole town in the first place. They are a town of secrets, and behind most of the secrets there are reasons of love. These people go their whole lives trying to keep their secrets. They have boxs and boxs that hold the secrets of their pasts, but when it gets down to it they are all searching for someone to share their present and their future with.
When Ivy's sister gets married, she is then allowed to start her own conquest, in search of love. When she choses Lucius, she has to ask her sisters permission in order for him to be the one that she loves, because in the past her sister once loved Lucius. The reason this is such a big deal, her sisters feeligns in the past, is because since love is such a strong force in this story all past relations must be aknowledged (spelling??) adn resolved in order for the pair to be able to be together. This society is one based upon secrets, so love is one of the few things left in their world that is out in the open for all to see.
It is a small town, so eventually when the elders die, somebody needs to be able to carry on this seemingly decietful society. So near the end when Ivy returns and the news of Noahs death has reached the elders, it is said that because of Noah's actions they will be able to continue their way of life. So i do think taht the elders have succeeded in their mission.
You all know how i feel about this movie....but it does have a good story line and a lot of controversial subjects. If it didn't have the scary parts in it....it might be an OK movie!
P.S: Is the girl who played Ivy in the movie, blind in real life?? Because she sprinted up that hill and into a forest without tripping.. which i think would be pretty hard to do without seeing anything. Just wondering.
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I agree with Spencer and Kaitlin in that the Village aimed, and missed, for love. The deciept that they create taints their origial purpose, a town free of evil. I think that good and evil are juxtoposed in that if there is good somewhere, evil also has to dwell there. This makes a society without evil impossible, because evil and good are naturally drawn together.
I also believe that Noah isn't neccesarily good or bad, but he is HUMAN. He acts out of raw emotion and desire, and he doesn't look forward to consequences even if he does feel regret later.
I agree with Kaitlin where the elders built their village for love. They wanted a place with goodness and an escape from what is evil. However, they created a place of danger and fear instead. The society they created I believe controls the evil that lies inside you. Since they wanted to get away from it they repressed any thing or any one that coul lead to it. Everyone possesses feelings (good and bad) that can lead to evil and it's our responsibility to express those feelings in an appropriate way. When Noah had the feeling of jealousy, it took over him and he attempted to kill Lucius. He should have talked with Lucius but instead his evil side got the better of him.
I also agree with Spencer that when we are faced with danger we have the choice to be cowardice or couragous and this is where they collide. Ivy is absolutely couragous. When she is faced with the monster in the woods she stanads up and fights. She is frightened but she doesn't cower away. Noah is cowardice. When he becomes jealous instead of building up his courage and attempting to confront Lucius about his feelings, he takes the easy way out using violence. In each of these scenes there were points where one could be cowardice of brave and one has to make the decision of which to go with.
These are the most powerful, eloquent, and persuasive comments I've ever seen on the blog. You've offered readings of this film that I have never considered.
I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that M. Night Shyamalan enjoys conflating polar opposites by showing how everything can transform into its contrary--vulnerability into impenetrability, weakness into strength, yellow/safety into red/danger, disability into superpower. The only immovable emotion is love.
The Village was an interesting example for this quote. I agree with it completely, but I am not sure if it makes sense with the village. The elders claim that they care so much for those living in the village so they must keep them away from modern society and inside the preserve. Then, once they have already created a lifestyle inside the said "village," the elders feel as though it was there job to protect the citizens, through fear, by creating "the ones we do not speak of". How can this act of "love" be honest if it is only shown by creating fear? Can an intense fear lead to love? To me, love is built on trust and honesty, what is going to happen when eventually the citizens find out; will the love still be there? Therefore, I think that society does not create evil, but they control it. The village happens to be an exception to the case, because the elders created the monsters, but in today’s society, evil is controlled but authority. Most people are afraid of the consequences so they dare not commit a crime, but that leads again to the timeless question, what is evil? How can we truly know if evil is created or controlled it the definition for evil is so vague? If evil was defined the same as in The Crucible and in The Village, than yes, the two tell somewhat of the same story. Both societies were ruled by fear; everything the characters did had some relation to the present evil at the time. I really have no idea how to end this so I am just going to leave it at that, with a few questions to think about.
I agree with Ms. Kakos and many of you that love is an immovable emotion/idea in The Village. However, can fear be immovable as well? I think that in this village, yes, love does play a large part but fear is so intertwined into everything that it seems that even love seems to give slightly against the heaviness of it. While Ivy is in the forest, she is obviously afraid, but sometimes in that fear you can see flickers of indecisiveness about whether to continue on her journey in the horrible wood. Her hope and love for Lucius and her marriage to him seem to be questioned in those brief moments.
It also seems that the villagers only love, or get along with, each other because they are afraid of what might happen if they "go against the grain" and choose to dislike or even hate someone. I think this is what happened to Noah when he decides to try to murder Lucius. He no longer afraid of the forest and its sounds and monsters, he only feels jealousy and hatred and hurt. These feelings to come with every baby born on this planet; no matter how hard you plug your ears and hum, "sin" will come in some form because it's our human nature.
Fear slides under the doors of the village houses every night, it crawls between dinner plates during community potlucks and even slithers into happy ceremonies. During the wedding, fear is shown by the screams of the kids outside who saw "those we do not speak of". Lucius' mother told him the story of his father's death to dissuade him from going through the forest. I think that she also told him this story to scare him out of going. I wonder whether this was the best way to tell him not to go.
Lucius said that there were secrets in every corner of the village, yet I think that along with the secrets there is fear of the past, of the present, and of the future, becoming more prevalent and immovable every day.
*Why did the elders decide to use fear to control their society? Is it the only way to control the villager's future curiosity?*
I think that in The Village, the elders did what they did because they loved their families and didn't want to see them get hurt. I think that in a way they were successfull in their mission. They kept the village a secret for a long time, shielding all of the people there from the rest of the world. But they still could not keep death and hurt away, and they realize that heartache is a part of life.
I think that when they were trying to hide evil, it was going to come out some time, and the longer it was hidden, the more severe the evil would be when it finally did. When Noah got jealous of Ivy, he tried to kill Lucius, but when Ivy decides to go into the woods for medicine, he follows her there, trying to spook her or possibly trying to kill her. He is driven by his love for Ivy, but also by his hate for Lucius.
The world does move for love. The elders of The Village succeeded in their main goal but only for a short time. A goal so complicated as theirs could not be sustain for an elongated period of time. Human society creates evil and then its people sustain and control it. The Village and The Crucible essentially tell the same story. Both show how society can attempt to remove all sin and evil, but it is not possible to maintain this purity for any period of time. Eventually, human nature will corrupt the minds of the leaders as well as the citizens. Courage to stand up for the original goal is the only way that a society can stay somewhat intact. Courage and Cowardice collide and break down goals. But when courage and courage collide, they can do great deeds. This is shown when Ivy’s courage meets Noah’s cowardice. He is afraid of losing Ivy and this cowardice ends up destroying him. On the other hand, Ivy’s courage to find “The Towns,” combined with Lucius’ courage to defeat death and Kevin’s courage to help a stranger against his bosses will, work together to complete an important task. These three have strong courage and together, they save a life and perhaps the lives of an entire Village.
I would like to address the question, "Does society create evil or control the evil that rests innately in individuals?"
I believe that society brings out the evil that is in all people. It sometimes controls it, and makes good social events, like the relationship between Ivy and Lucius. However, the interactions can also be bad, like the jealousy within Noah that led to the stabbing of Lucius. I think, like matter, evil cannot be created; it can just be augmented from what we have inside of us to begin with. Certain situations can cause the ‘evil’ to be released from us. Jealousy and extreme disagreements could be such situations.
I would also like to agree with Erin G. and her statement about love being the ultimate goal for everyone. It seems to be most people's dreams to find this emotion and live with it. Also, Ivy braves the dark forest, death, and the outside world just for Lucius. I think, in turn, that this quote does hold true with the film. The world moves for love. At least, individual 'worlds' move for love. Ivy's world did. Her world was moved, not just because she endangered herself, but she found out the truth of the creatures. Her whole outlook of life and how she lives it was turned around because of her love for Lucius.
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