The Immigrant Experience
The movie “Far And Away” gave two different perspectives into the lives of two unique immigrants and their journey to the United States. Shannon Christie and Joseph Donelly both lived in Ireland and both wanted to leave their country for the United States. They both come across unexpected challenges and struggle with their new lives.
Shannon Christie played by Nicole Kidman grew up in a very wealthy home, her father being a powerful landlord was able to provide Shannon with everything she needed. She struggled with the expectations that her family had for her. She dreamed of owning her own land as well as doing what she pleased with it and had planned to run away to the United States. She got her chance when Joseph Donelly played by Tom Cruise fell into her life.
Joseph Donelly, son of a poor famer, is trying to overcome his own troubles. The landlord has all the land and his family is not making enough money to keep them from losing everything. After a dispute over the landlord, Joseph’s father suffers from a terrible fall and passes away. Shortly after his father’s death, the landlord’s helpers burn Joseph’s house. With nothing left to call his own Joseph decides he is going to kill the landlord, who is also Shannon’s father. Josephs attempt failed and he was caught, this was what Shannon required, someone who was daring enough to confront a powerful person, all she needed was to convince him. With the idea that in America they just gave land to whoever wanted it. This idea was more than enough to get Joseph to come with to America.
On their arrival to America, Shannon and Joseph realized what they had heard about America and the land was not what they had expected, but that was only the beginning of their troubles. After Shannon looses all her valuable silver spoons, to a man who scammed her, they are left with no money and nowhere to live. Joseph is spotted fighting; he and Shannon are given a place to live and somewhere to work. Joseph soon gets caught up in the fame and fortune of the boxing world and this frustrates Shannon. Jealousy soon over takes both of them and they lose their fortune, their home, and their jobs. What they both thought was going to be a fresh start to their lives in America was far from it. Their expectations were not fulfilled and may have lost more by coming to the United States then what they would have if they would have stayed in Ireland. Joseph and Shannon go their separate ways and begin to settle down in their new country. Then the thing that brought them to America in the first place will bring them together again at the end of the movie, land. The run for land is yet another challenge both Shannon and Joseph have to overcome. They both want the same section of land and the only way to get it is to get there before the other. As fate would have it, Shannon and Joseph end up getting the land together. Although they got what they came to America for in the end, they didn’t get it easy. They faces money troubles, they struggled to find a place to live and fought to keep their view of what America was like alive.
Shannon and Joseph got what they wanted in the end but was it worth what they lost? I believe it was, they came to America for land and for freedom and they gained both. Yes, they had their struggles, but they overcame them and fought for what they truly wanted. No landlord to deal with and no one taking their earnings, just them and their land. They found that the “American Dream” was not all that dreamy and that if they wanted something it was not just handed to them, they had to fight to it. But overall I think that they gained much more than what they lost.
How do you feel about this, was their fight for the land and leaving their home country worth what they gained in the end?
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The movie needs a part two. It is one thing to obtain land and it’s another whole story to find out what happens afterwards. Their struggles are far from over with; the real fight is just beginning. In order to say whether it was worth it we will have to visit Shannon and Joseph ten years later. Even though you don’t refer to this, if I could, I will go off on a small tangent. During the movie, when they are racing to get “their” land, the camera scans the crown watching them and among the crowd are Indians. I don’t know about you, but that is the saddest part of history and this movie. These immigrants come in to claim “their” land, while the rightful owners have to sit there and watch – that really turned me off the whole movie. I didn’t even care about the immigrant experience after that, because America made immigrants out of Native Americans.
ReplyDeleteI think that Shannon and Joseph's decision to leave their country was one that left them, in the end, more happy with their lives. I can't help but comment off "The Goob's" comment about the Indians. This part of history makes me so angry to think about. You stated it perfectly, this was their land before we decided to immigrate here-and for what? Free land? I don't know about you, but nothing comes free. There will always be a cost to everything. If this movie were to have a sequal, we would definitely see Shannon and Joseph experience the real cost of having their own land in America, like taxes. In a way, America did make immigrants out of Native Americans.
ReplyDelete>>was their fight for the land and leaving their home country worth what they gained in the end?
ReplyDeleteI think it was worth to do. Of cause, they experienced hard time, and also they faced to death. However, Shannon could escape from traditions which she hated, and Joseph could his dream come true. However, immigrants have to keep paying the cost because how much they try to fit into new culture, they already have their original culture and it is hard to replace their original culture with new culture.
At the end of the movie, it appears that both Joseph and Shannon's dreams have come true. They are able to own their own land and live their lives as they choose. They faced many struggles, but achieving your dreams is never easy; you continue to fight because the dream means more to you than what you are giving up. However, their struggles are definitely not over. Living and working as a pioneer was hard, and as Kim mentioned, they would pay for their land in taxes. What's sad is that by the 1930s, most Oklahoma farmers had lost their land to the banks and were once again working as sharecroppers-which is exactly what Joseph hated about Ireland.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely believe that their risk was worth the reward. Imagine being trapped in a situation in which you don't have many choices, or else the only choices that are in front of you don't speak to who you really are. Both Shannon and Joseph were free spirits, unlike Shannon's mother who lived by a code of conduct and seemed very comfortable that way. Perhaps she in the very end will be the one in the family that will have the most to give up, fretting about whether or not her ankles are showing.
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