This article is the only known location of an article by Peter Mathews, Spinoza's Stone: The Logic of Donnie Darko. New views of the film are dicussed, with themes related to Alice in Wonderland, Faust, and Schrodinger. In the end the film is divided into many sets of two extremes. Life and Death, Dukakis vs. Bush, and Fear vs. Love. Donnies main theme is that he breaks away from the mold, breaks away from the two extremes; to Donnie, there is so much more. But in the end, Donnie gets stuck in the mold of two extremes. Basically, the film can be viewed as "Spinoza's Stone".
"Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.
--Spinoza, Letter to G.H. Schaller (October 1674)"
Mathews' article appeared in the September 2005 publication of
Post Script Magazine.
2 comments:
Edits:
On the third line you spelled discussed "dicussed". Also, I think your ending quote need to end the sentence, not the citation.
I like the way you worded the moral of the movie saying that "people are conscious of their desires, but ignorant of the outcome that those desires will bring about."
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