Field Of Dreams Essay, Research Paper
A Second Look At “Field of Dreams”This was a story about how acting upon impulse, or doing something upon a gut feeling can become a good thing. This was a story about how change, mystery and even dreams changed the life of one stubborn man, a man who was afraid of not changing.Ray Kinsella, the main character in this story hears a voice while he is surveying his corn fields, which says “If you build it, he will come”. He gets the idea to build a baseball field right smack dab in the middle of his corn. First of all, the community he lives around definitely doesn t support the idea of taking risks or acting spontaneously. This was definitely because it was a farming community, and life was hard enough, and not worth tossing all away on a risk. This was the part of the movie I liked, when all of the farmers just stare at him, when they hear that he is going to build the field. Ray s wife was behind her husband throughout the entire story, and she portrayed a very commendable character. Even though her brother and the rest of the farmers thought he was crazy, she seemed to understand how if you felt like doing something, you really should. For example, when Ray calls his wife from Boston, she doesn t tell him over the phone about how they are going to lose the farm if they don t do anything quick. She really basically doesn t want to shoot down his dreams. There was one point in this movie which demonstrated personal values, and the values that directly and indirectly influence a community, in which I thought had a definite meaning. It was a quote near the end of the movie, when Shoeless Joe asks Terry if he wanted to go out into the mysterious corn field, and into the land of the dreams. Ray objects, and at this point he s being really selfish. This is because everything seems to be coming together for everyone else, except him. Ray: “What s in it for me then?”Shoeless Joe: “Are you saying that you did all of this for just you?”This quote shoes how by doing everything that Ray did, he helped every character in this story. All of these voices that Ray heard had a important meaning, which eventually described what he should do to help everyone else. The first voice that Ray hears, was while he is surveying his corn fields. “If you build it, He will come”. At first, Ray thinks that if he builds the field, someone will come, and it ends up being Shoeless Joe. But the voice didn t mean that only Shoeless Joe would arrive, and effect Rays life, it also meant Terrence Mann, and Moonlight Graham, and all kinds of characters. By simply building the field, it led to all sorts of people who would effect the story-line arriving on Rays path of life. At the end he realizes that by doing all of this, and by building the field, his father came. He also hears the voice, “Ease his pain”. At first, Ray believes that this applied to helping Shoeless Joe, but he ended up easing everybody s pain. He helped Shoeless Joe, and all of the eight Ghost- players, by giving them a second chance to play baseball. He also eased Terrence Mann s pain, because he helped this victim of society come out, and forgive society for what they had done to him. He forgave everybody for labeling him as what they had. Also it is unclear what happens when Terry goes out into the corn field, but it probably has something to do with the government tearing down Whimblies Stadium in the sixties. He also helped ease Archibald “Moonlight” Graham s pain, because he gave him a second chance to prove to himself that he had what it took to stay in the major leagues.
“My wish would be to stare down a pitcher on the bottom of the ninth, and make him think you know something he doesn t, then as he goes into his wind- up, wink at him, and turn a double into a triple.”If Moonlight Graham had caught a single ball, or even hit in his game back in the 50s, he could of stayed in the big leagues. Ray also relieved his fathers pain, because he was given a chance to apologize to him. By doing this and by, playing catch with his dad, Ray s own inner guilt was healed. This was Ray s way of apologizing in his own ways, as it would have meant a lot more towards him than a simple “I m Sorry”. Ray also helped his wife s brother Kevin, because he helped him to understand why he was doing all of this. Kevin didn t understand, nor did he listen to what Ray was saying, he only saw what was there. Kevin valued his sisters wellbeing, and also the material wealth. Kevin never listened to Ray s reasoning, and that s probably why he never saw the baseball players.Ray Kinsella has no idea why he s doing all of this, only his fear of turning into his father fuels him.”I m thirty- eight years old, I have a wife and a child and I m afraid of turning into my father”. Ray says this near the beginning of the story when he s talking to his wife. His father never did anything spontaneous, and in his eyes he viewed his father as a failure. Ray said something to him that he never meant, but his dad died before he could ask for forgiveness, which was probably over quite a while. I think that he never knew his father that well, and he did all of these events due to his fear of turning into what he imagined his father was. Another thing which I strongly believed made this story extraordinary, was the quotes in which he talks to Shoeless Joe, and to his father in the late part of the film. His father asks him at the end of the movie, “Is This Heaven?”, and Ray replies, “No, it s Iowa”. He later on wonders, “Maybe this is heaven.” It shows you how Ray never pictured heaven to be his home, but at the end he realized that it could be, if this was what perfection, or nirvana was for him.Along with my own, our group has learned a lot from this story, and it has made us all grow as learners I personally feel that our group pondered many artifacts from this movie, and we all figured out why the small things in life can really count against you if you don t make them right, and its up to you to do what you ve got to do, to reflect upon life as you would have wanted to. Personally, I really enjoyed this movie, and I thought it had a lot to do with society, even though a lot of it was portrayed with the super natural. This film showed how your value of wealth and money, can interfere with how you perceive the finer things in life, and the quality that you live it to. The title of this movie was very important. The “Field of Dreams” was a place which gave people a second chance to put life right, and the way it should ve been. All of the characters who touched Ray s life had long passed, such as these baseball stars from the 50 s. This was an important example of how it showed him that all of these ghosts lived lives, and all of the errors that they did. But in the very end, Ray did the right thing for everybody. He didn t do it just for himself, in the end everybody had a second shot at what they needed, and this changed Rays, along with my personal way in which I choose to define life, and societies values and fathoms.