English Exam 2 Review

What are some of the ideas that are juxtaposed in A Simple Plan?

Amanda (the baby) and the crime The innocent town with Hank and his evil family

What is Apocalypse Now? How does it relate to A Simple Plan?

Apocalypse Now is based on the book a Heart of Darkness. It features Kurtz who, when he is a civilian, is an incredible, moral, and well liked person. When he is in combat, however, he does horrible things. It highlights the idea that we don't know who we truly are and how fixed our character is until we are put into a situation that somehow strips away the confines of society and presents us with the opportunity to betray our morals.

Why is the first scene of the Simple Plan movie one of the most tragic parts of the film?

Because Hank has a decent job, a wife he loves, the respect of his neighbors, and generally a good life, and yet he betrays all of it

Why do evolutionary biologists argue that people are never truly happy?

Because the lack prevents us from being satisfied and halting as a species. It insures that we will always progress

What is the Grand Guinol?

19th century theater in paris that put on horror plays emphasizing grotesque and complicated execution scenes

What is deontology?

Ethics that looks at motives

How does Hank fall into the repetition compulsion in A Simple Plan as defined by Freud?

He falls into the unconscious desire to fall into his parents' story because he allows himself to be controlled by money

In what way is Hank threatened by Lou and Jacob?

He feels threatened by their friendship, and for some reason, self conscious about himself as a man because Jacob and Lou are so brutish

In what way does the film highlight the snow?

It gives it an ominous and scary feel to contradict the color of good

What is the significance of the following quote? "Think of the life we could give the baby," I whispered. "The security, the privilege... "It's lost money, Sarah. Nobody knows anything about it. It's ours if we want it."

Ways that Hank justifies the crime

What is the significance of the following quote? "You ought to tell Jacob you're going back to the plane," she said. "Maybe have him come with you." "Why?" "It just seems smart. Last thing we need is for him or Lou to drive by and see your car sitting next to the park... "It's just being careful, Hank, That's what we have to be from now on. We have to be thinking ahead all the time."

By taking the money, Hank and Sarah have brought on a life of anxiety. Although they will be financially stable, they will never truly be secure again

What is the significance of the following quote? "I'm not sure if I actually believed this: that we were unasailable. Certainly I must've been aware even then of the dangers of our course, must've felt some fear when I stopped to consider all the difficulties yet to be overcome..."

Conscious: Hank is not worried Unconscious: should have been freaked out because of all of it

How does A Simple Plan explore the idea of crossing boundaries?

Each boundary indicates new ways that Hank's character is falling apart, like ticks on an odometer. The exhilaration of breaking boundaries leads to the further destruction of his character

Why does Scott Smith start A Simple Plan with the story about Hank's parents' suicide?

Emphasizes the importance of money, helps to illustrate how the money isn't just money, it is a way to redeem his parents' legacy

What is the significance of the following quotes? "What is the first thing you're going to buy with the money?..." "A bottle of champagne," she said. "Good champagne. We'll drink it, get a little tipsy, and then we'll make love on the money... We'll spread it out across the floor, make ourselves a bed of hundred-dollar bills."

Example of perversion in the book

What is the significance of the following quote? "It was how I'd always imagined men were supposed to speak with one another, and to hear my brother do so now threw him suddenly into a different light, made him, for perhaps the first time in my life, seem more mature, more worldly, than I was."

For some reason, Hank is really insecure about his masculinity, and this is heightened by Jacob's friendship with Lou

What is the significance of the following quote? "A bouquet of flowers was resting beside the Pederson plot, chrysanthemums--yellows and reds--their vivid colors looking garish in the dim light, more like splashes of paint from a passing vandal than the sincere symbols of grief they were meant to be."

Garish means grotesque, so in the light of the cemetery, around the plots of the people Hank has killed, the flowers appear to look grotesque and out of place as opposed to signs of grief

What is the significance of the following quote? "I raised the shotgun until it was pointing at his stomach. The gun felt heavy in my hands, and its weight gave me a sudden sense of power. It felt exactly like it ought to, dense, potent, like something capable of killing. This is craziness, I thought to myself, briefly, and then I let go, slipping into it. All my fear, all my anxiety fell away: I felt capable of anything. I smiled at Sonny."

Hank crosses the boundary of committing crimes and enjoying committing crimes. He allows himself to feel good while killing sonny

What is the significance of the following quote? "I cried on the way home, for the first time since Jacob's apartment...I tried to stop, tried to think of Amanda, and how she'd never know any of it...but it seemed impossible to believe, a fantasy, the happy-ever-after ending of a fairy tale. We'd romanticized the future, I realized, and this added a further weight to my grief, a sense of futility and waste. Our new lives were going to be nothing like we'd imagined... we'd never escape what we'd done; our sins would follow us to our graves."

Hank finally realizes the tragedy of what he's done, and that the money will always come with the burden of their crimes

What is the significance of the following quote? "If I could kill my own brother, then I must be capable of anything. I must be evil."

Hank has a moment of self realization, but he doesn't internalize it.

What is the significance of the following quote? 'I saw with a shudder that not only couldn't I predict the actions of those around me, I couldn't even reliably predict my own. It seemed like a bad sign; it seemed to indicate that we'd wandered, mapless, into a new territory. We were as good as lost."

Hank has the realization that because he has done things that he could never imagine and he is supposed to know himself, that now he can not only not predict the actions of others but he can't predict himself. Hank has himself tricked in self delusion.

In what ways does A Simple Plan prove that family relations are more fragile than we'd like to believe?

Hank is willing to kill Jacob for the money

What is the significance of the following quote? "I approached the table hesitantly as if I were afraid Sarah might hear me, though it wasn't a conscious thought. I scanned its surfaced. There were all sorts of brochures, at least thirty, probably more, travel brochures with pictures of tanned women in brightly colored bikinis, of families skiing and riding horses, of men on tennis courts and golf courses, of tables laden with exotic food."

Hank realizes that Sarah is unhappy with their lives, too.

What is the significance of the following quote? "Sarah had received a R.S. in petroleum engineering from the University of Toledo. When i first met her, she was planning on moving down to Texas and landing a high-paying job in the oil industry... Instead, we got married. I was hired by the feedstore in Ashenville in the spring of my senior year, and suddenly, without really choosing it, she found herself in Delphia... She was a trouper; she always made the best of things, yet there had to be some regret in all this; she had to look back every now and then and mourn the distance that separated her present existence from the one she'd dreamed of as a student... it wasn't until tonight that I saw it for the tragedy it was... We were trapped, I realized; we'd crossed a boundary, and we couldn't go back."

Hank realizes that he no longer had control. if he were to lose the money, he and Sarah would be miserable forever. There is also the question of the lack of intentionality Hank exercises in his life. He doesn't take really make decisions, he just lets things happen to him.

What is the significance of the following quote? "We'd come so far since then, so much had happened--I'd lied, stolen, murdered--and now that past, so close in a purely temporal sense, was utterly irrecoverable. It was a terrifying thing to recognize, the gulf that separated the two of us then...from the two of us now, sitting here in our bedroom, plotting how to blackmail Lou and frighten him into silence. And we'd crossed it nowt in any great leap, but in little, nearly imperceptible steps, so that we never really noticed the distance we were traveling. We'd edged our way into it; we'd done it without changing."

Hank realizes that immoral behavior crept up on him and had a snowball effect.

What is the significance of the following quote? "I could kill her...If I could imagine it, if I could plan it out, then I could do it. It'd simply be a matter of my mind telling my hands what to do. Nothing was beyond me."

Hank removes himself from his behavior. He engages in dissociation, determinism, and disconnection between mind and body.

What is the significance of the following quote? "Before leaving, I stook for a few minutes beside our family plot... The blank spot in the stone's bottom right corner was waiting for me, I knew, and it was a nice feeling to realize that--unless I were to die within the next few months--it would never be filled in. I was going to be buried a long way from here, under a different name, and thinking this gave me an instant's rush of happiness... We were escaping our lives. That cube of granite had been my fate, my destination, and I'd broken away from it."

Hank thinks that the money is going to fix everything and sees it as this Utopian future. He feels so strongly about escaping his family and everything he has ever known when in reality he will never truly be satisfied. Hank is also in some ways avoiding death, because he doesn't recognize that one day he will die and have to face his crimes

What is the significance of the following quote? "Everything had already been determined for me--I was just following along now, handing myself over to my fate."

Hank uses determinism to justify his crimes. He had no choice

What is the significance of the following quote? "I'd gone to college to become a lawyer, only to give it up when I hadn't gotten the grades. Now I was an accountant in the feedstore of my hometown, the same town I'd spent all my childhood vowing to escape. I'd settled for something less than I'd planned on when I was younger and then convinced myself that it was enough. It wasn't, though; I saw that now. There were boundaries on Sarah's and my life, limits to what we could do and where we could go, and the pile of money lying at my feet illuminated them, highlighted the triviality of our aspirations, the bleakness of our dreams. It offered us a chance at something more."

Hank was happy with his life before the money but the money makes him want something more. He realizes that his life "just kinda happened" to him but now that he has the money he can change that.

What is the significance of the following quote? "I surprised myself, in fact, by feeling more reassurance than grief. As long as I maintained the image of the duffel bag in my mind, I could make the $31,000 seem inconsequential...and I found the idea of someone stealing it, rather than my merely losing it, strangely comforting. There were men out there traveling the country and robbing innocent people of their savings. It made what I'd done seem a little more explicable, a little more natural. it made it seem easier to understand."

Hanks is participating in self delusion by allowing himself to think that murder is the same as fraud. He tries to find ways to make his crimes not feel so bad

Who is Chris Marloe and what does his play have to do with A Simple Plan?

He is a playwrite who wrote Dr. Faustus, a tragedy about a man who makes a deal with the devil. The devil will give him whatever he wants if he will sign his soul over in blood. When he gets all of his wishes, he can't enjoy them because he knows the price he will pay. This becomes known as a faustian bargain. The money serves as a Faustian bargain because Hank sells his sense of security, morality, safety, etc for the vision of the money.

Who is Normal Rockwell? How does he relate to a Simple Plan?

He is an artist that paints pictures of wholesome small town america. The movie is very "rockwell-esque" in that it captures the small town vibes, which makes Hank's crimes worse in comparison

How is Hank's path like an addition?

He starts off distanced from the money but after he lets his guard down the money takes over him and he finds himself doing so many things he'd never imagine doing

What is the significance of the following quote? "I was still out over the abyss, I realized. There was a fourth step to be taken before I could reach the other side."

His exhaustion makes it easier to kill, makes him more vulnerable to impulsivity. Illusion to MacBeth

What is Lacan's idea about desire? How does it relate to a SImple Plan?

Lacan believed that there was this feeling inside of us called the "lack" which makes sure that we are never 100% satisfied with everything in our lives and leaves us wanting more. It is both productive and tragic because on the one hand it leads us to keep trying and on the other hand it is completely unattainable. Hank believes that the money will solve his lack, but in reality it wont

How is the following quote like MacBeth? 'I saw with a shudder that not only couldn't I predict the actions of those around me, I couldn't even reliably predict my own. It seemed like a bad sign; it seemed to indicate that we'd wandered, mapless, into a new territory. We were as good as lost."

MacBeth says "I've stepped in blood so far that to return would be as hard as stepping in."

What is the significance of the following quote? "Aren't you afraid of later? he asked. "Later?" "Guilt. Feeling bad." I sighed. "We did it, Jacob. We had to do it, and we did it." "Dead," Jacob said. "In cold blood." I didn't know what to say to that. I wanted to avoid thinking about what we'd done, knew implicitly that nothing good would come from self analysis. Up to now I'd felt a comfortable sense of inevitability in all my actions, as if I'd merely been looking on, watching myself on film, thoroughly engaged in what was happening but harboring no illusion that I could alter even the most trivial events. Fate, a voice seemed to whisper in my ear, and I let the reins slip from my hand. But now Jacob, with his questions, was eroding this. He was making me look back, see that bloody water dripping down through the ceiling was there because I'd willed it to being. I pushed the thought away and immediately replaced it with an angry surge of resentment toward my brother, sitting there on the toilet, fat, passive, judging me while it was his own panic, his own rashness and stupidity that had trapped me into my crimes."

Maybe Hank killed Jacob because he made him feel guilty? Hank realizes through Jacob that in fact, this was not fate, and this concept is too much for him to handle. It leads him to resent Jacob. He also uses distancing. Also calls into question the debate about media and how our behavior is influenced by it. Media desensitizes us.

What is the significance of the following quote? "This is bad, Sarah," I said. "It's evil." "Please," she whispered. "Do it for me."

One of the first and only times that Hank actually recognizes how awful his actions are. Evidence of how controlling Sarah is

What is the idea of the Death Drive by Freud?

People have a subconscious level of self destructive tendencies. Just like we have the impulse to keep ourselves alive and move forward, we also have the impulse to destroy ourselves and to die. There is something in our psyche that pulls us to death

How is the snow's meaning altered in A Simple Plan?

Rather than being pure and innocent like normal because it is white, it takes on a more insidious appearance

How do Sarah and Hank use each other to justify their actions?

Sarah gives Hank the ideas, so Hank can blame his actions on Sarah because she is controlling him. Sarah doesn't actually commit the crimes, and so Sarah is technically not in trouble because Hank has the blood on his hands

Who is Valerie Bertinellie? Why does she relate to A Simple Plan?

She was a celebrity who started out really innocent and became addicted to cocaine. She eventually quit, but it took her 4 years to reverse her brain chemistry to a point where she could enjoy anything again

What is the significance of the following quote? "Dad would've understood what we're doing," Jacob said. "He knew the importance of money. It's all that matters, he used to say, the blood of life, the root of happiness."

Sheds some more light on why money is so abnormally important to Jacob and Hank. Also highlights the repetition compulsion. Bible verse" the signs of the father shall be visited upon future generations" meaning that children are apt to do what they see their parents do

What is important to remember about Hanks as a narrator?

That because it is told as an account of his feelings and experience, he may or may not be a reliable narrator

What is the significance of the following quote? " I felt an edge of lawlessness, it's true--a cool, cocky feeling rippling with a terrible fear of getting caught..."

The beginning of the idea of fear mixed with pleasure; the thrill of transgression. Hank's character is beginning to be unwound

How does the fox represent the concept of fate?

The fox is the true moment that their lives change, representing that one split moment can alter someone's lives forever

What is significant about the following quote? "Looking back on it now, after all that's happened, it seems insane with what little fear I picked this path. It took me perhaps twenty seconds, a third of a minute's worth of debate. For a brief instant I was in complete control, not only of the money's destiny but also of my own, and Jacob's, and Lou's, yet I was utterly unconscious of this, had no feel for the weight of my decision, could not see how, within the next few seconds, I was going to set into motion a series of events that would radically transform each of our lives."

The mistake that Hank made was SO QUICK and yet it had so many reprecussions

What is the significance of the following quote? "I can't shoot Sonny," I whispered. I could feel my back sweating, could feel beads forming along my shoulder blades. "You have to," Sarah said, pleading now. "It's the only way it'll work..."

The murder of Sonny is premeditated, which is another boundary that Hank crosses as his character falls apart. It is also the first indication that Sarah may be more evil than Hank

What is universalism? How does it relate to A Simple Plan?

Theory created by Kaut (ca 1800s) in order to remain effectively, rules should be followed 100% of the time. Very legalistic. Proves that Hank's actions are completely wrong

How does the idea of talent play into A Simple Plan?

There are people that think that talent doesn't really matter, but instead that people practice over and over and over again and that success is a matter of hard work and repetition because repetition alters your brain chemistry over time. Because Hank repeats these bad things over and over, it has the potential to alter his biology to make him keep doing these things, and to a more intense degree.

What is the significance of the following quote? "The radio echoed through the store: "and Christ said, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' That is to say, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

There is the bible music playing in the background. Shows that Hank has become evil and it is almost like God is turning away from him

How does the American Dream come into play in A Simple Plan?

There is the struggle with the idea that the money comes easily to Hank as opposed to him having to work for it. There is something morally wrong about things coming too easy to someone

What allusion is in the following quote? "It's stealing, Jacob. Isn't that enough?" "It's not stealing," he said firmly. "It's like lost treasure, like a chest full of gold."

Treasure of the Sierra Madre. A group of friends go into the mountains and find gold. At the beginning they're friends, but throughout the movie they start to lose faith in one another

What is the significance of the following quote? "I can look back now and say that in many ways this was the absolute apogee of my life, the point to which everything before led upward, and from which everything after fell away."

Truly devastating because he is so young, and yet this is the literal peak of his life. On the NYE of his 30th year of life, 2 huge markers of beginning, he was marking the end

What is significant about the following quote? "Without even realizing it, without even intending to do it, I began searching for a way to take the packets. And it was like magic, too, like a gift from the gods, the ease with which a solution came to me, a simple plan, a way to keep the money without fear of getting caught."

We see that there is an unconscious foundation to Hank's behavior. The part about it being a gift from the gods is loosely modeled after Macbeth because it questions the idea of free will vs fate. A simple plan is ironic because while it starts out deceptively simple, it spins out of control

What is the first indication that Hank's life is taking a different course?

When he lies to the deputy Carl successfully for the first time

What is the significance of the following quote? "I've been thinking about the money," Jacob said, "and I think maybe we were fated to get it... There are so many things that might've gone some other way," he said. "If it'd just been chance, then it never would've happened. It's like it was meant to, like it was chosen..." "But why is that fate?" I asked Jacob?... I couldn't escape the thought that everything balances out in the end: if it was luck that was bringing us through our present difficulties, it was bound to turn on us before we were through."

While Jacob wants to believe it is fate, Hank has a moment where he realizes that more likely it is karma and because of all of the bad things they've done, karma will eventually turn on them

What does Effete mean? Who does it describe in a Simple plan?

Wimpy and feminine in a prestigious way

What is a film noir?

dark crime film that juxtaposes good and evil while blurring the line between. Contains cynicism and pessimism and often involves revenge, paranoia, and alienation. Shows the dark side of a bright world.

what is consequentialism?

ethics that looks at consequences. If no one gets hurt, it's okay. The way that Hank defends his stance

What is the repetition compulsion as defined by Freud?

the unconscious desire to repeat things that harmed us in our past as a way to understand the initial trauma.