The Trumann Show Essay

The film deals with a lot of problems for the modern man. We follow Truman Burbank an ordinary man, he lives a normal life in a middle class community. But he’s not ordinary, the first time we get a clue is when he’s about to get in his car on a normal morning and a light falls down from the dome, this symbolise that Trumann’s live is going to crash on the ground. And soon he begins to get clues that all the people are involved in a big plot against him.

Trumann also finds out that his choices can affect his life, something he had never experienced before because of his repetitive lifestyle. In fact it looks a lot like the lifestyle most of us have today. We get up at the same time everyday go to work at the same time everyday and just like Trumann we have we accepted it. But somehow it starts to become boring for Trumann and he discovers that he can change his life by his own choices and starts to blame himself for his awful life.

Many of the modern men or women can relate to this. Today most of us don’t believe in God, Allah or religion at all. We are responsible for our own lives. Not like a thousand years ago when you lived after a book, which told you how you should behave in society. You could also say he becomes a bit existentialistic. Existentialism is an ideology that thinks about the individual soul and denies existence of god.
Trumann also pursue his dreams or he start’s to do it. He wants’ to go to a little Island called Fiji which he has dreamed about it a long time. This is the first step out of his comfort zone from everyday life and a big one at that.

Existentialism denies the existence of a God, here you could say Christof is the god, for example on clip three. Christof talks to Trumann through the heaven that lights up. Which must be a symbol of Christof as some sort of god, he controls the weather and all the nature, he can make all the lines for the actors and he’s the Creator of the show.

In clip three when Trumann is about to leave, Christof starts a conversation with Trumann. He tells him that he’s an inspiration and gives millions of people hope and joy. It sounds a lot like how Jesus would have made a conversation with his dad, God. Remember the symbolism if you split Christof it says “Christ of” which makes him more a god like figure.
In clip three when Christof is having a conversation with Trumann, he tries to make him stay by saying that it’s okay to be afraid of the real world to remind Trumann that he doesn’t like change. And he points out that he has made the perfect world for Trumann, a Utopia. And as Christof says (in clip three), “There’s no more truth out there than in the world I created for you.” And two sentences later he says, “But in my world, you have nothing to fear.”
Just after that Christof starts to tease Trumann. By telling him about all the big events in his life. When he lost his first tooth, his first day in school and even the day he was born. This combined with the quotes above, makes him like a father for Trumann. A dad, that has followed him his whole life. Which can be referred to Jesus being watched by god making sure his son is fine which is also clearly expressed in the quote “But in my world, you have nothing to fear.”
All this raises a question. Would our existence be more meaningful with the existence of a god? Christof made the ideal world for Trumann where he didn’t have to fear anything. The biggest problem in humanity is, defining the meaning with life is? We are all struggling to find the meaning with our lives. There are movements out there like Existentialism as I have mentioned, there’s also Nihilism for example. In Nihilism there’s no reality and there’s no meaning with life. Only the one you find is the right one. Maybe we humans have become to smart to get tricked into a religion that can tell us what to do which is easiest for the people that handle us. But we start to pursue our own dreams instead of being stationary as we have been as long as history goes down.