Forrest Gump Tragedy
Forrest Gump Tragedy
Forrest Gump Tragedy
Sure, it
has glimpses of sadness intertwined within the a happy life story of the main character,
Forrest, who in the end gets a happy ending. However, if you stray away from the main
character and move over to one of the most important side characters you can find
more of the aspects of a tragic protagonist. The side character I felt embodied the tragic
protagonist point of view the best is Jenny. Jenny is Forrest’s best friend, who comes
into his life as a child and grows to become his love interest. Jenny is fiercely protective
of Forrest. We meet Jenny in the beginning when she is a child having lost her mother.
We watch Jenny and Forrest grow to teenagers, college students, and young adults.
We watch Jenny grow into a young adult who eventually succombs to the AIDS virus.
As the movie goes on more and more aspects of a tragic protagonist are made
apparent. We start off the movie feeling sympathy for her. Eventually her
As I mentioned above, we start off feeling sympathy for Jenny pretty early on in the
movie. When we first meet Jenny, it is on a school bus. She is the only one who is
willing to let Forrest sit next to her. This simple action sets their entire relationship into
motion. As the movie progresses we learn that Jenny’s mom died when Jenny was only
five years old. This is the first thing that helps people feel sympathy for her. She is only
a young girl and is forced to grow up without out the guidance and influence of a
mother. With the passing of her mother, Jenny’s father becomes an alcoholic who
focuses his abusive behaviors onto Jenny and her sisters as a way to release his anger
about the life he now has to lead. His way of releasing those emotions is by physically
and sexually abusing the girls. We don’t ever meet Jenny’s sisters, but we see Jenny as
his sole focus of this abuse in the movie. Early on, Jenny wants to escape from the
reality of what her life had become after losing her mother. She would pray to get far
away from him and his abuse, and the viewer can feel sympathy for her. As the movie
progresses and we see Jenny grow into a young for college we see yet another
example of a bad decision Jenny makes as a result of the life that she has had. She
makes the decision to pose for Playboy, wearing her college sweater, never seeing the
negative affects it would have on the college and her role as a student there. She was
doing the best thing she knew to do to make money and continue her education. After
getting kicked out of her college, Jenny goes on to work at a strip club, again not
realizing the negative affects. Jenny wanted to be a musician and the club was a place
she could take her talents and support herself, never realizing that men were simply
wanting to fawn over her naked body. Some people might not feel sympathy for her as
she made that choice but I do. Growing up Jenny learned that she was going to have to
take care of herself. So, she is in the mindset that you have to do whatever you can to
survive and she knows that in order to survive you need quick money. In her mind
posing for Playboy and working at a strip club were simply ways for her to survive on
her own. One last scene where I feel sympathy for her is when we learn she remains
in a relationship with a man who hits her. This brings a sense of deja vu to the viewer as
the boyfriend reminds them of Jenny’s dad who in and of himself was physically
abusive. Jenny was used to the male figure in her life being abusive.
Now, let me move on to her hamartia. I struggled to find something that could be
considered a hamartia. We talked about hamartia not as a fatal flaw but as someone
missing the mark. Now it easy to find a fatal flaw for Jenny. She is a selfish woman who
likes to do what she wants with really no thoughts about others and their feelings or with
disregard to the negative effects it has on her life. In saying that, I do believe she truly
cares for Forrest as a person and her best friend. I also genuinely think she wants to
find contentment in her life. She wants to be able to settle down and live a “normal” life,
but the way her mind and morals were shaped as a child lead her to be unable to do
that. I believe this is how she misses the mark. If she was able to get over her past and
accept Forrest as someone that genuinely loved her, she could have saved her self
from her past and the poor decisions that led to her acquiring a deadly disease. Forrest
tried multiple times to have her stay with him and live a better life, but everytime she told
him no and went off with a boyfriend or a group of hippies, who were negative
influences, to make more poor decisions such as illegal drugs and unsafe sex. It is not
until she receives her poor prognosis that she decides to allow Forrest to give her a
good life.
news is bad news. The example of peripiteia that I found was towards the end of the
movie when she finally gets her life together. She has a stable job waitressing and has
become a mother. Everything seems good until it is revealed that she has an incurable
disease. In the movie it is not specifically stated that she has AIDS but all of the signs
lead towards that diagnosis. This is peropiteia because she had finally got her life
straightened out and making good decisions, when llife decided to throw her a
curveball. This diagnosis means that Jenny is never going to see her child grow up. She
will inadvertently become her own mother, minus the abusive father of the child. She is
going to have to trust that Forrest is able to raise their son, but knows her son wil not
The last aspect of a tragic protagonist that I am going to talk about is an anagnorisis.
This is the moment of recognition that tragic protagonists usually have. In Jenny’s case,
I believe her moment of anagnorisis is when she finally realizes that she needs Forrest
and that she has truly cared for him all of these years. Deep down I think she knew that
she loved Forrest their entire friendship. She realizes that Forrest can give her, and
ultimately their son a great life, much different from her own. It just took her until she is
near the end of her life to realize this. She eventually marries Forrest and moves into
his childhood home. She lives out the rest of her life safe and secure in a home filled
with love. The movie and Jenny come full circle, where Jenny is safe again. Forrest
protects Jenny just like when they were kids and Forrest would try to keep Jenny safe
otherwise uplifting story, Jenny’s life was one that was filled with multiple losses and
poor choices. But, as a viewer, you felt sympathy for her because Jenny only knew a
life of survival. She lost her mother at a young age, lived with an abusive father, and
didn’t know how to trust and love. Ultimately, Jenny was looking to survive, but she was
also wanting to be loved as much as she loved others. Movie viewers can empathize,
and ultimately sympathize with Jenny and the life that she lived as a tragic protagonist.