Cast Away Meaning
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jchristiansen Feb 6th 2010, 20:49 report
A UPS international operations manager obsessed with time is ironically given all the time he can ask for. He has become unable to spend "inefficient time" with those he loves, even his true love. His island experience of isolation could come even if he was not actually cast away. It could come through the crisis of being laid off or divorced. He readdresses his life and takes on the difficulty of getting back out there. The seemingly impossible odds and the actual relentless waves try to keep him from venturing out. On his journey, he is accompanied by a whale, a God figure, who looks out for him. The whale comforts him, alerts him when Wilson drifts off and wakes him up when the shipping freighter is passing by (listen for the whale sounds). The losing Wilson scene is a pivotal decision to let go of personal illusions in exchange for real life.
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anonymous Jan 29th 2011, 19:12 report
Cast Away stays in the back of my mind for all the literary effects used. I'm sure there is much more there than I currently see.
The movie opens, and ends, at a crossroads. A metaphor for life. In the beginning, the FedEx truck knows where it has to go but in the end, Chuck is lost at the crossroads and has to make a decision which way to go.
His Moscow training speech to FedEx workers about the importance of time foreshadows his confrontation with time on the island.
On the island he found that he was powerless for most things. He was unsuccessful in suicide but had great joy in creating fire. Things washed up on the shore, and he had the power to choose what to do with them. He was a victim of circumstances for the most part.
I don't understand why he didn't open that one box that had the logo for the Dick & Bettina ranch seen at the beginning of the film. I don't understand why the logo was on the raft shelter, and why he decided to save that FedEx box through his years on the island, put it on his raft, and deliver it in person after he was rescued.
There is situational irony that is unclear to me. At the beginning, the FedEx truck picks up that package at the Dick & Bettina ranch and we see that package being loaded via packagecam which goes to Moscow. Bettina has sent her husband in Moscow the package but we see him and his Russian mistress. At the end of the movie, "Dick" is missing from the name of the ranch. Chuck leaves the package at the home where there was no answer, with a note, "this package saved my life." (How did it save his life?) Leaving, he stops at the crossroads to determine which way to go. A local woman stops to help him with directions. As she drives off, Chuck sees the logo on the back of her truck, the same logo that was on the package he left at the empty house. The camera pans around all four crossroad directions and ends with him looking at the direction of her house. The audience can infer that he goes to her.
Chuck took the opportunity of using a port-a-potty to build a 'boat' to leave the island. He had the power to die on the island, die at sea, or possibly be saved at sea. At the end of the movie the audience can infer that Chuck chooses to go to Bettina. A choice he makes instead of letting things happen to him.
On a different note, I love the fact that after he was rescued he met his former fiancée who is now married with a child, they do the right thing and go their separate ways even though it's clear that they are still very much in love. -
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anonymous Oct 17th 2011, 23:19 report
The reason that he didnt open the package with the wings is that it gave him a sort of goal to deliver the package, which was something to work toward(how it saved his life). It was on the raft because it was symbolic of how it helped him out of the island and over the waves that were keeping him from leaving.
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