What the Hell is Spinoza's Stone? Donnie Darko Relates?

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.

Donnie Darko: "Why Are You Wearing That Stupid Man Suit?"

Donnie Darko, directed by Richard Kelly, was not a success at the box office when it was first released in the beginning of 2001, however today it is widely accept as an American cult classic. The story follows Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) a confused teenager in 1988 who becomes a victim of his own destiny after a mysterious airplane engine crashes into his room. Donnie is also haunted by a strange, six-foot tall bunny, Frank, who tells him that the world will end in "28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds."

The movie is a very complex and hard to understand. There exist many websites and blogs on the internet that attempt to explain and theorize what every aspect means though I have included the Wikipedia article, which also includes Kelly's own interpretation.

Every living creature on this earth dies alone.