阿甘正传-对美国文化的分析

In the late Nineties of last century, there is a film creating such a buzz upon release in the United States that not only reached 253 million U.S. Dollars at box office, but also won 6 Awards of the 67th Oscar including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor awards. The film is Forrest Gump.

It is a movie telling the story of Forrest Gump, an unimportant person whose intelligence quotient is only 75. But he experienced many difficulties through the post-war period and eventually become a shrimp industry tycoon. Forrest Gump, the hero who was born before the screen, use the brush of his own experience to write a special history of human beings.He presents the American spirit which include optimism, tenacity, dedication and loyalty.These are just the virtues and values that the whole American society pursue for hundreds of years.

1.The "American dream" represented by Forrest Gump

The core of the American Dream is to succeed through personal struggle. The miraculous luck and success of Forrest Gump was just the essence of "American Dream" . When Gump, with a "disabled" body rised from humble life, ran from an ordinary person into the university, ran into the olive-star ranks, ran into the White House, untill he became a millionaire, he used his own experiences write a civilian fairy tale. The westerners, especially Americans, worship this kind of spirit of personal struggle, They think that personal values are the supremacy of all. In fact, individualism is the most respected temperament in the West and is also regarded as the substance of cultural values in Western societies.

Forrest Gump, through his ordinary but extraordinary experience, re-evoked "American Dream". Gump, with individual effort, ran through the three decades of contemporary American history, and also ran from the most turbulent period in American history to a new era of glory. Therefore, he become the examples of today's Americans, "U.S." a symbol of "American Dream".

In addition to the role Gump, the dreams of other key roles, especially Jenny's dream are all beyond the rational and pragmatic American dream and broken in the end. However, at the end, the movie brought these different forms of dreams return to the traditional American dream. Jenny chose to live a plain but practical life after her dreams were dashed to the ground. In the last moments of life, she married Forrest Gump. The film gave her a common home. This return is her only destination. Lieutenant Dan, after struggling against the fate and the suffering of the faliure, found his place and succeeded in the light of Gump's spirit. Similarly, Babu's dream was realized because of Gump's success. Everyone' s dream was eventually returned to the spirits of Forrest Gump who represents the belief of the American dream.