The Transgression of the Existential crisis of Self through Unfathomable Desire – In Relation to the movie Forrest Gump

Abstract

This study encapsulates Robert Zemeckis’ movie ‘Forrest Gump’ (1994) as a portrayal of the transgression of the existential crisis of being a mentally retarded persona through unfathomable desire. The unfathomable desire of Gump has undertaken him with a plethora of possibilities which locates him as a phenomenon as a mere individual. As a Qualitative study, the study focusses on the movie ‘Forrest Gump’ (1994) with theoretical interpretations of Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud and Martin Heidegger. In data analysis, the researcher employed a literary analysis with selected theories of desire. Gump desires to travel to a novice existential composition and locate himself in a new disposition beyond the physical and psychological differentiations. This desire implanted by his mother, Jenny with different incidents in American history upsized his existential realm to a new spatiality deviated from his identity as a man with a lower IQ level. Parallel to this desire, his oddity serves to upsize scathing criticisms on the coeval discourse. Gump’s individuality remained constant in many circumstances where his individual success amalgamated by means of being different from all character portrayals that conform themselves to accepted identity formations. Gump’s successful surpassing of his physical and psychological differentiations through irreversible desire offers him countless possibilities to relate his self to the society.