Holly Bassett
Dr. Santas
26 June 2014
PHIL 3900
Filling In the Blank Pages of Identity
Although friendship and a strong sense of community can be argued to be important aspects of happiness, they start to become hindrances of happiness when they start to take away a person’s capacity for individual thought. An individual needs to be able to think for themselves and to choose for themselves. There is a difference between an individual searching for and finding what makes them happy, and an outside source telling them what should make them happy. The worlds that were constructed in The Truman Show and Pleasantville were artificial and did not reflect the personalities or natural desires of the inhabitants of these worlds. The happiness that was portrayed in these worlds was only a façade, or the supposition of what happiness should be. Both the town of Pleasantville and the world that was created for Truman seem to only be concerned with what certain types of happiness look like on the surface and not with the deeper meaning of happiness or the true happiness of an individual.
Everything in Truman’s life was chosen for him; he had no say in where he lived, where he could travel, or even which woman he married. His life was controlled by a series of both physical and mental manipulations and restraints. Christof suggested that Truman could leave this artificial world if he truly wanted to and tried hard enough. However, how does a person escape from a prison if they do not know that they are being imprisoned? The Truman Show is a movie that seems to follow the line of reasoning that an individual can sense the prison around him, even if he can’t see it or doesn’t know that it exists. The prison that surrounded Truman consisted of several blanks, or missing pieces, in his personal identity. These blanks came about because Truman never made any decisions for himself, which meant that his identify was never fully developed.
The problem was that the constructed world that Truman lived in did not necessarily fit in with what Truman may have considered to be a meaningful and fulfilled life. Truman wanted to see things and experience things that didn’t exist in the world Christof created for him. The fact that Truman wanted to be an explorer when he was a child showed that curiosity was part of his personal identity, but that curiosity needed to be stifled because it did not fit in with Christof’s world. Truman had the misfortune of living in a world that was constructed by one man, which would seem to make the small island that Truman lived on very one-dimensional and monochromatic, since it was constructed from the imagination of just one person.
The people who lived in Pleasantville had the same misfortune of living in another monochromatic town that was created and controlled by a select group of men. Of course, several different societies are dictated by a few who tell the majority how to live. However, the physical boundaries are not exactly the same, and usually people know that there is a world that exists outside of the town that they live in. The ignorance that the people of Pleasantville had about the world outside of Pleasantville is symbolic of the ignorance that they had of their individual thoughts that feelings. They were never taught anything about the outside world, and therefore could not visualize anything other than Pleasantville. Likewise, they had never been taught how to think for themselves. Their lives were scripted and predetermined and they had no need to think for themselves. This need developed when a pair of outsiders came into their cave and told them about the deception of the shadow that was Pleasantville. After being told this knowledge, the townspeople then had a choice as to whether or not they wanted to leave the cave and explore thoughts and directions beyond those that had been scripted for them.
The blank pages in the books in Pleasantville mirror the blank lives of the characters. They are like blank slates because they have not been filled with any kind of substantial knowledge. This lack of knowledge could be considered ignorance. Ignorance can make a person think that they are happy because it lulls them into a state of complacency. However, no suffering is involved in this complacency. This lack of suffering means that there is no personal growth and no real chance for personal development. The lack of sorrow or suffering does not necessarily mean pure happiness, especially when this lack is the effect of a false reality.
There are blank pages in Truman’s life as well. These blank pages are created by the gaps that exist when the life that a person is living is basically a lie. In Pleasantville, the blank pages of the books begin to fill when the townspeople start gaining knowledge. The books represent knowledge, which is a dangerous thing in a society that hinges on keeping the masses complacent and obedient. The question about why knowledge is more dangerous than sex is an interesting one when it is compared to how sex is represented in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Sex can be used as a means of control; this can be done by either taking sex away completely or turning sex into a meaningless commodity that is used to distract people with too much pleasure. Either way, it takes all of the emotion out of the act. That is another thing that complacency can do; it can take away the emotional highs and lows that human beings normally experience. In this way, Pleasantville reminded me of the movie Equilibrium. Without the ability to experience deep emotions, human beings become drones that can be easily manipulated and controlled.
Truman and the inhabitants of Pleasantville filled in the blank pages of their existence when they started to ask questions. Truman’s blanks or gaps came from all of the absurdities that surrounded what everybody claimed to be a “normal” life. The way that his wife spoke ridiculously about household items and the way that all of the other people on the island acted provided clues for Truman that allowed him to see the inconsistencies in his world. Seeing those inconsistencies is what helped him begin to understand what he needed to do with his life. In his case, he needed to escape from the artificial world so that he could start thinking for himself and hopefully construct his own world based on his personal ideals. In the case of the people of Pleasantville, their blank pages began to be filled when they started feeling genuine emotions and not artificial ones.
An individual needs to have an understanding of themselves in order to be happy. A person can’t know who they really are if decisions have been made for them all of their lives by other people. A healthy sense of individuality, as well as a strong knowledge of one’s self, are very important when it comes to personal happiness. This knowledge comes from constantly asking questions and exploring options beyond what other people claim to be a normal or perfect life.