Preview

Comparing Nietzsche And Groundhog's Day

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
468 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Comparing Nietzsche And Groundhog's Day
After discussing Nietzsche in class, I could not help but draw connections between his philosophies and the movie Groundhog’s Day. The first Nietzchean concept seen in the film is the idea of the eternal recurrence or the “eternal return of the same”. This concept is integral to the plot of the film because the film follows Phil Connors a weatherman who is cursed to relive the same day over and over. Phil’s life becomes a predictable cycle, one in which escape seems impossible. Phil at first seems hesitant to accept that his life is an endless recurrence of the same but eventually he begins to take advantage of his predicament.
Once Phil becomes full aware of his life’s predictable sequence, he begins to use his knowledge of future events

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The first important similarity between the two is their view of man as an intermediary being. Kierkegaard sees man at an "intermediate stage" between what he once was and what he will become. He believes that to exist does not mean to be in an end state, but always striving for something more. Humans strive toward becoming subjective. For Kierkegaard, life is a transformation from essential to existential. Nietzsche sees man similar to this, He calls man a “bridge" rather than an “end". The important part of a man is his potential. Man is striving, but for something different. Nietzsche says that for man Ubermensch, the ideal man or Superman, is the goal. It’s a representation of man at a constant battle to overcome itself. The Superman must…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essentially, it can be implied, that Phil represents the personification of America as a whole, losing feel with all that matters, dominated by desires we don’t have, and not living for that which matters most. Although Phil was an extraordinarily hard worker, he was the most typical of people. His life revolved around his work, and he forgot about why he worked, only knowing to work. Becoming mechanic in everything he does, like a robot he had no soul,…

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Groundhog Day is a very interesting and entertaining movie about a meteorologist who becomes trapped in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It stars the hysterical Bill Murray as Phil Connors, a sarcastic Philadelphia weatherman who is far too full of himself. He travels with the entourage of cameraman Larry, Chris Elliott, and his lust interest Rita, played by Andie MacDowell. Phil lives through the same day, Groundhog's day, repeatedly with no consequences. Each time around he does things a bit differently, yet little is changed. Strangely enough, the movie applies to what we are learning in religion class.…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nelson Mandela had said “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” This quote openly displays that everyone has the right to do as they believe. No one person should have their rights taken away from them, especially the right to live as they wish. Nevertheless, this occurs in both the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest written by Ken Kesey and and Dead Poets Society directed by Peter Weir. In Kesey’s novel, the men are oppressed by a controlling head nurse until a newly admitted patient, Randle Patrick McMurphy enters the hospital and begins to turn things upside down. Dead Poets Society follows the story of a group of boys who attend Welton Academy boarding school, which believes in traditionalistic values and methods of teaching. This is, however, until new English teaching Mr. Keating enters the ranks of the administration. These…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Harold Ramis Groundhog Day

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Murray plays a really good protagonist, in the movie Phil is known for being very selfish and makes many sarcastic remarks with his co-workers throughout the film. Also, his body language and dialogue toward others is mostly negative and unprofessional throughout the film, then towards the end of the film, he perspective starts to change. For example, the first time Phil die, in going off the cliff, his coworkers reacted to his dead with little emotions that come with having a friend who dies. He learns several lessons during each time he repeats that same day. During the first time Phil repeated that day, he thinks that he is going crazy, then a few more times he takes advantage with the women of the town. He learns that he can get away with anything and which leads to depression, having him kills himself several times. Afterward repeating the same day over and over, he starts working on himself by ready poetry, learning music, and shedding his disinterest from the world then eventually falls in love with Rita Hanson, played by Andie MacDowell (Goldberg,…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Henry David Thoreau once stated in Civil Disobedience “I was not born to be forced. Let us see who is the strongest. What force had multitude? Thoreau, the father of Transcendentalism, would have never predicted the events that would take place because of Hitler, nearly a century later, the way Hitler took what he wanted and did not care what people he affected. Both Hitler and Thoreau have one thing in common, they are willing to fight for what they believe, but how they differ is their methods. If Adolf Hitler and Henry Thoreau had worked together, Thoreau’s beliefs in Civil disobedience and individuality through simplicity would have transformed the way that Hitler used totalitarism methods during his reign as leader of Germany.…

    • 2625 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy dreams of the future in which he will be well-liked and achieve his goals of being rich and maintain his job. However, his mind is so involved in the past and longing for the future that he does not focus on the present reality. This causes his life to no longer be prosperous, leading to his hamartia. This consequently leads to Willy Lomans tragic death after the realization of the reality he has been avoiding. Willy’s enduring of the hamartia and anagnorisis due to his hubris leads him to be characterized as a tragic…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    While it appears, on the outside, that John Stewart Mill contradicts Nietzsche’s idea that the mind serves deeper than our inner human drive, however, the story of Mills life seems to actually confirm itself. You see, Nietzsche believes that your instincts define who you are and if you go through life using your brain making all your decisions for you, you aren’t being true to who you really are. Nietzsche talked about how Socrates uses reason to influence his instincts and make decisions that way; he thought this was the one downside to Socrates. It's almost as though Socrates was tricking himself so that his instincts were overshadowed by his reason. John Stewart Mill used his reason to examine every little thing in his life. If you look at the development of the man from the outside you only get to see that reason plays a huge part into what he believed. However, if you actually get to know the person and look at him from his point of view it is clear that he actually was the opposite of Nietzsche’s theory. It becomes easier to see that everything Mill worked toward through his whole life was to affirm his life by trying to overcome his need for everything to be reasonable.…

    • 1526 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Do not let the shadows of your past darken your future. Forgive and forget.” These wise words apply to many people around the world who don’t want their past to become their future. Only you can pick what you will let affect you, don’t let the dark times determine your bright future. Tobias Eaton, known as Four, is the protagonist in Veronica Roth’s novel Four who has a dark past, but refuses for that to be his future. After reading this book, it is clear that one of the messages the author wanted to convey is that your past doesn’t create your future. This theme is shown through scenes involving Four’s choosing day, initiation, and career as an initiation instructor.…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Updikes short story, A & P is about a 19-year-old boy, Sammy, and his short but decisive transformation from a carefree teenager to a grown man with the consequences of his actions weighing heavy on him in the end. On an otherwise ordinary day, the course of Sammys life is changed by an out of the ordinary experience which challenges him and compels him to make a rash decision that is based on what he knows in his heart is right for him.…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Answer: Nietzsche’s eternal return " is a thought experiment in which one imagine that the life's choice they make will repeat forever"(Brusseau, 2012). Meaning that one should be aware that whatever decisions they make in life, will repeat in a loop. When Tanksley says that she "wouldn't change a thing", is does reflects the idea of what…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Groundhog Day Analysis

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages

    2. Phil’s solution was to limit his own desires by putting everyone else’s life ahead of his own. He took it upon himself to save all of the people in the town. For example, he saves the little boy falling from the tree, the man choking on his steak, and a homeless man who he claims to be his father. By doing so, he does not necessarily resign himself to fate, but rather let himself dictate fate by knowing everything that is going to happen. His solution was to have Rita fall in love with him by seeing that he was a good man, and in the end his solution worked.…

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Company Man

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Over the course of this piece Goodman makes it no secret that Phil was overworked and had actually, as she believed, “worked himself to death,” and was a “Type A workaholic.” Throughout the reading she constantly repeats the idea that Phil’s job was a demanding one, occasionally employing the same sentence numerous times to drive her point home. For example, she specifically states three different times that “he worked himself to death, finally and precisely at 3:00 am Sunday morning,” and eve adding some further insight that Sunday was actually his day off. Through this strategy, Goodman makes the reader very aware that she does not agree with this type of lifestyle, and depicts Phil as a man who works 24/7 and cares for nothing else, including his own family. This begins to directly tie into her employment of pathos and her dark-humored, sorrowful tone. Because of her overwhelming emphasis on OPhil’s death being a result of his work, she can then shift ficus to his family, if thats what she would even consider them. She states that the wife ha been “missing him all these years,” even before he was legally declared dead, and that before the funeral Phil’s eldest child, one of his so called “dearly beloved,” had to scour the neighborhood “researching his father,” and finding out what he was like from his neighbors. She then continues by mentioning the lack of a relationship he had with his daughter, and describes how they “had nothing to say to each other.” As Goodman describes these scenes, one can not help but to feel mournful, and pity the family that never had a father; the kids who never had a…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On most occasions, the outcome of events that takes place in a person’s life is the product of a self- fulling prophecy. For example, in my case I realize that I have been an active participant of a self-imposed, self -fulfilling prophecy in my life especially when I would take a test. In the event of taking a test my point of view would become clouded with negative thoughts like I can't handle this, I’m going to do horrible, or I’m nervous. And guess what? I would be right and do horrible or I would not be able to concentrate on my exam because I would make myself nervous.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This theme unquestionably identifies with today, as a variety of individuals attempt to plan their future, however, they wind up accomplishing something different. At this point, when those like Macbeth, who persistently believe that they comprehend what is best for them, attempt to change their future, it places them in a bad predicament, as it may not be the best arrangement for them.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays