Zeyu Zhang
Professor Martinez
Eng 110
6 Nov 2012
The world is drunk I wake up alone
-Feelings after watched Donnie Darko
Someone has said: the world is drunk I wake up alone, the movie “Donnie Darko” is a horror and fictional movie, directed by “Richard Kelly”, the protagonist is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, released at 2001; it is talking about Donnie Darko, who has schizophrenia, sacrifice himself to save the world. I think in the movie “Donnie Darko”, Donnie is the person who should say the world is drunk I wake up because in the movie, the behaviors of Donnie are very strange; and people around him even his family thinks he is sick; however, Donnie makes others think he is schizophrenia is reasonable and hard to understand; he does not want to sacrifice himself at the beginning, therefore he has to do “something” to change the density; however, no matter what he does, he cannot change the fact that the world is going to end; so the only way he can do for saving the world is sacrifice. As a result, I do not think Donnie is schizophrenia.
This movie is talking about a young man is called Donnie Darko, who is born in 1980’s, become very anxious in his teenager life; the movie is deeply discussed about love and fear; at the beginning of the movie, the director created a argue between Donnie and his sister to insinuate Donnie is sick; at that night, Donnie is called by a voice, and escape from a accident. More and more hallucination comes out, Donnie starts to believe the world is going to end in 28 days. One of the most hallucinations is a bunny rabbit called Frank, he tells Donnie the exactly time of Apocalypse and he is the chosen one. Donnie realizes he must use his abilities and strength to face these strange changes in his life. After a series of events happened, Donnie is back to the day which he escapes from the accident, and his chooses sacrifice himself and save the world.
In some ways, Donnie seems to have schizophrenia; at the very beginning of the movie, Donnie is sleeping in the middle of the highway, the first impression of Donnie which the director gives us is Donnie is a “special” person; after that, Donnie clearly tells us that he is visiting a psychiatrist; so we can believe that Donnie has psycho problem; and also Donnie’s behaviors are proving that he seems to have schizophrenia: sleeping walking, hallucination (Frank), burning the house, floating the school etc; the most important evidence that after he suspends from school, his parents go to talk to the doctor, and the doctor says Donnie is schizophrenia.
However, in other ways, Donnie can seems he is not sick. There is a book call “The Philosophy of Time Travel” in the movie, it tells us that due to some unknown reason, the Primary Universe sometimes will run out of the time path and turn into the Tangent Universe. If a Tangent Universe occurs, it will be highly unstable, sustaining life for no longer than several weeks. Eventually it will collapse upon itself, forming a black hole within the Primary Universe capable of destroying all existence; it means the world is end. The first sign of the Tangent Universe is the appearance of the artifact which is aeroengine in the movie. In chapter five of “The Philosophy of Time Travel”, it says that the Living Receiver is chosen to guide the Artifact into position for its journey back to the Primary Universe, and also the Living Receiver is often tormented by terrifying dreams, visions and auditory hallucinations during his time within the Tangent Universe. According to these evidences, we can believe that Donnie is not sick.
According to the government issued definition of schizophrenia, schizophrenia can be defined to these characteristics: severely thinking, emotions and behaviors. From the movie we can understand that Donnie’s thinkings, emotions and behaviors are different from normal human-beings: the reason he is suspended from school, he argues with Jim Cunningham, more serious, burning Jim Cunningham’s