Essay Example on Cast Away: Five Years of Survival in an Unoccupied Island

Cast Away is a Hollywood film of survival drama as the genre. Released in the year 2002, the film narrates of a FedEx employee, Tom Hanks (as Chuck Noland), who has to overcome troubles to survive after his flight crashes into the Pacific Ocean during a business trip to Malaysia. He ends up surviving in an unoccupied island, for about five years. This interesting drama portrays how Chuck survives his problems, adapts and finally succeeds in returning home; some of which are discussed in this paper.

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Chuck faces a problem of surviving from the plane crash. When the plane is knocked off the sky to the ocean, Chuck is thrown from all sides of the plane. He ends up struggling for his life to survive. He keeps on sinking and resurfacing every-when. In the long last, a bloated raft comes to his rescue. He hangs to it inanimately and survives for a whole night before he is washed by the waves to the beaches of a nearby solo island together with the body of one of the pilots and several goods from the plane. This marks the genesis of his adventure.

Chuck is in crisis on how to survive on the island. Without food, fire, shelter and cold, he must me initiative enough to ensure he sees the light of the next day. He also has a corpse to bury. He uses some of the packages in his disposal to survive but only one; the one he is to deliver with the FedEx wings logo engraved on it. In his initial attempt to make fire, he ends up with a lesion in his hand and that makes him angry. He reacts by discarding everything in his reach. To overcome his frustration, he creates a social partner by painting a face into a volleyball and names it Wilson. With time, Chuck can make fire and fish from the waters. He is adapted to live at the ocean.

He is in dire need to return home alive. A symbolism aspect is brought up when he heads up to the cliff to bury the pilot. Standing on top of the cliff, the writer symbolizes the indecisive nature of Chuck's thoughts; He might choose to use the cliff to as perfect place sail away from the island or fall away into the sea. Being alone and facing all the miseries, he might justify any decision he is to make. Fortunately, he decides to use it as the exit point from the island. He creates a loop from a rope, wraps it around a block of wood and descends with it down the cliff into the ocean when the time is accurate. He then sails across the ocean from a raft he had made with the flotsam of a portable toilet.

Chuck faces another major challenge of exiting the island. He wants to go home to be with his family again. He is convinced that the rescue operation might not find him because the area to be scanned is about 500,000 square miles, double the size of Texas. In a monologue, he says, "That's a search area of 500,000 square miles. That's twice the size of Texas. They may never find us" (IMDb, 1) He unsuccessfully tries to signal any passerby ship by boldly carving the word help into the sand and flickering the torch-light at night that might come to rescue him. He even uses fire after his success in lighting one. When he finally manages to sail away from the island, the journey is not all rosy as he might have wanted. Turbulences turns up against the raft and he is chased by a charged whale. He ends up stranded in a field of the sea. He almost gives up but luck fell on his side. He is retrieved by a cargo shift and he wakes up to a better place (Cast Away,1)

Conclusion

To summarize, Chuck expresses the spirit of a non-quitter and would go beyond any obstacle to survive. His ability to adapt to an uncivilized island with no social aspect, neither food nor warmth is extraordinary. In the end, his resilience pays off when he is reunited with his family who think he died and even buried him.

Works Cited

"Cast Away." IMDb, IMDb.com, 22 Dec. 2000, www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/.

"Quotes from 'Cast Away.'" IMDb, IMDb.com, 2000, www.imdb.com/title/tt0162222/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu.