Full Metal Jacket

Meaning and purpose can be defined depending on the reader and the author that is defining it. The meaning and purpose of any form of literature is the main point of the piece of work, why it was created and what the author wants the reader to understand or get from his or her work. As for the movie Full Metal Jacket, the director, Stanley Kubrick, wanted to have a combination of comedy as well as a sense of realization when it comes to a soldier becoming a marine and what it takes to be one.The characters throughout the movie each show a different way of nderstanding and dealing with the problems that they had to quickly overcome. Full Metal Jacket is a movie that shows the different roles and stages of the marines that were stationed in the Vietnam War. The first half of the movie had an entertaining way of showing the audience how they were trained and how they learned that they were indeed â€Å"born to kill†. The main purpose of the first part of the movie was to show the audience what the soldiers had to go through first in order to make it as a marine.It had to be a hard as well as somewhat brutal and life-changing experience n order for them to be ready to become the killing machines that they were forced to be. The changes that the characters have shown make the second half of the movie very different in terms of their attitudes, what each soldier viewed as right and wrong, as well as the events that take place throughout the movie. This part of Full Metal Jacket was geared more towards the actual Vietnam War and revealed the reasons as to why they had to become heartless in a way during their training.Throughout the course of the war, some of the soldiers slowly but surely slipped out f their sanity and become cold-hearted killers in order to survive themselves. Each marine in Full Metal Jacket had to be able to prove that they were worthy enough to take on certain obstacles in the first half of the movie, such as emotional and mental hazing. S tanley Kubrick made sure to incorporate as much of the hazing as possible within the first half of the movie in order to show the audience how much work each soldier had to put into the beginning of their Journey into becoming a marine.If they could not take control of the rate of hazing they received it would be seen as a eakness, therefore proving that they are not ready for the war. For example, Pyle who was a soldier that as overweight clumsy and slow-witted, could not take the stress and harassment that came with the training of becoming a marine and he could not endure the embarrassment that was thrown at him every time he did something wrong, which in turn made him decide to commit suicide as well as murder Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, the drill instructor who trains the recruits in order to turn them into marines.Gunnery Sergeant Hartman seemed to have caused ll of the anger and frustration that Pyle had to go through, therefore Pyle's actions proved to the audience and to the marines that were involved, that not everyone can make it as a marine and may end up losing their sanity over it. The whole point of allowing the audience to view this is to reinforce the level of maturity that would be required to fully understand the troubles that comes with being a marine.The first half of Full Metal Jacket mainly focuses on how much a person can take while preparing for war, being in war, and knowing how to act and react to certain issues and perceived throughout the movie. In The Green Berets, Sargent Peterson, a Special Forces sergeant, quickly realized that he needed to make sure that Hamchunk, a homeless Vietnamese child, was safe and well accounted for when their base was being attacked. This quick form of action shows the audience that he was well trained and knew exactly what to do and when to do it.Full Metal Jacket revealed other ways of bringing out a characters sense of maturity and therefore had a different aspect compared to that scene, and basicall y the entire movie of The Green Berets. Full Metal Jacket was meant to make the audience completely understand hy the soldiers had to go through training the way that they did. It all comes together once the audience sees firsthand what can happen when a soldier loses his focus or is not fully prepared for what may happen next.The series of events that happens during the second half of the movie could make or break anyone who may not be tough enough to endure all of the negativity. Full Metal Jacket is supposed to be an eye opener and should cause a sense of realization for the audience. In the scene where Doc Jay and Eight Ball, two very brave marines, were being attacked by a niper, Animal Mother, a tough marine, did everything he could think of doing in order to try and save his dying friends, even though he knew that there was no chance of their survival.Regardless, Animal Mother went out alone, against his direct orders, to try and find the sniper and kill her in retaliation. G ranted, he could not do it alone, he called the rest of the soldiers to try and track her down. Once they found her, they shot her, made her suffer in pain for a little bit and then killed her. In a normal world, doing these actions would seem horrific and Just not right, but due to heir previous training and sudden attack from this woman, the soldiers were forced to murder this woman and left her there.This type of action or retaliation enforces the moral or immorality that ties in within the movie. Murdering the sniper, especially her being a woman, opens up a more intriguing way of the audience socially analyzing the situation. Making the audience decide whether or not murdering her and allowing her to suffer was acceptable or hard to accept due to her being a woman. As for the soldiers, this decision was made easily and as the sniper as laying down suffering, the audience could easily see the reactions that each marine made, showing their different views on their daily lives.Eac h soldier had their own morals and values compared to other soldiers. Obviously, each soldier has his own personality which brings a different outlook on what it is that they have to do, and how they are supposed to do it. Each soldier must fulfill their mission, and do what they are instructed to do. In Full Metal Jacket, the soldiers seemed to have similar values, and seem to have been brought up or trained almost identically. Due o the first half of the movie where they had been trained to know and love their rifles and to be ready to shoot and kill whatever was not considered one of them..Every soldier knew what they had to do and they were all comfortable when it came to killing the enemy and possibly sacrificing themselves in the process. Unlike Full Metal Jacket, in the movie Platoon, Sometimes the soldiers take their main source of responsibility and manipulate it. For instance, some of the soldiers took a young girl from the village that they took over and tried to rape her in order to satisfy their ersonal needs, until Chris, the main character as well as the marine who decided to human being and should not be raped Just because of her unfortunate circumstances.This scene showed the audience how some soldiers will have the wrong mentality due to their current hectic lifestyles, while other soldiers know and remember their rights and wrongs from â€Å"back home† when it comes to doing things that they can personally control. Full Metal Jacket seemed to have been made for the audience to view and understand the troubles and obstacles that each soldier has to o through beginning from his training all the way through his actual fght in the war.The audience is supposed to learn and begin to understand how the soldiers are supposed to be trained in order for them to make it during the war, or in order to know what to do to help whoever is directly associated with the war. Stanley Kubrick wanted to open up the eyes of the â€Å"outside world† and allow people to realize what each marine has to go through and their purpose for becoming a marine. They are not always out and about trying to rape and murder every woman they encounter as well as taking over everything that they see. There is a process that each soldier must go through in order to make it where they need to be.Full Metal Jacket compared to Platoon and The Green Berets makes the audience see both sides of a soldiers' life whereas the other two movies only show the second half of the soldiers' life when he is already trained and in the battle field. The other two movies don't show how the soldiers came up to where they are now, it reveals only what they have already accomplished within themselves, and they already have their own views on life depending on the amount of negative series of events that they have encountered. Full Metal Jacket has more than one meaning, and more than one purpose.Stanley Kubrick wanted to make sure that the audience was able to inter pret and take back with them the struggles and the achievements of a marine. What it takes to become one and what it takes to remain one at all times during the hardships of being in a war. Due to that, the movie seemed as if it should have been two separate movies, which makes it unique, compared to The Green Berets and Platoon where each movie was based solely on the war. Although, all three movies showed the different kinds of ttitudes that evolved into a marine as they each evolved or became a different person whilst being a part of the war.Some characters showed emotion while some didn't show any emotion at all, displaying the different levels of maturity that each marine must have. Displaying the different emotions was meant to allow the audience to see the war in different aspects based on certain marines in the movies. Full Metal Jacket allowed the audience to watch the marines as they evolved from viewing things in different ways. Regardless, the movie was supposed to be a sense of realization and knowledge.