Saturday, April 12, 2014

Miller: Allie Fox's Fanatacisim


Michael D. Miller
 
Mosquito Coast Blog
11 April 2014

Allie Fox’s Fanaticism

Act 1: Allie Fox in the beginning of the film travels to the local hardware store. On the ride to store, Allie Fox is riding in the truck with his son, Charlie Fox, all the while he is describing to his son how he feels about the decline of America. The commercialism and deceit of American companies undermining American products, which in his mind is leading the way to the decline of America, and selling foreign products to the American people, putting Americans out of work. Allie Fox is negatively influencing his son, Charlie, who holds his father in high regard, about the future of America. Allie refuses to buy a Japanese Allie Fox dreams of a utopia in the jungle living the simple life. He sees the migrant workers and states how they left their country in hopes of coming to America for a better life; instead they just traded themselves into another form of slavery leaving behind their traditions and customs of their former land.   

Act 2: Allie and his family are now living in the town of Geronimo, which he bought from man at the bar. Allie uses the natives to build his dream utopia in the jungle. To further his hopes of a society in which he can live independent of the American Imperialism. In doing so, he creates an American like society with a monopoly on the ice trade. Allie seeks to spread his ice to all of the natives in the jungle in order to gain a god-like status. He did this because he was feeling unappreciated among the natives who had helped him and who had taken advantage of his invention. His hopes of becoming a god-like figure among the more primitive native deep in the jungle led to his discovery of what he believed were hostages being held by the native. In fact they were wanderers seeking a better life to escape their previous commitments to whatever organization they were once a member of. They track down Allie’s jungle paradise and invade his home. Allie decides that the only way to rid his family of the unwelcome guests is to lock them in “Big Boy” and freezing them to death. Allie Fox is willing to kill three men to protect his jungle paradise. He rationalizes his actions to Charlie that the men are no better than a blood-sucking mosquito and that they had a number of chances to leave, but refused.  

Fox hopes to start a new civilization amidst the poverty stricken, illiterate natives. Although his goal is to ‘save” his family from the perceived declining social structure of the United States, he is at least partially driven by an egotistical desire to be regarded as the heroic “savior” of the simple people he hopes to live among. Despite achieving some remarkable goals. Fox’s quest ends tragically when the civilization he so despises encroaches on his jungle paradise. (Pfeiffer 156)
 

Act 3: Are we still going up river mother? Allie has been shot by the Reverend Spellgood as he tries to escape Spellgood’s compound after setting the church ablaze. Allie and his family make good their escape, but Allie is in a bad way with a gunshot wound to the stomach. The Fox family begins to head down river toward the ocean in the opposite direction that Allie wanted to go, a metaphor for life’s choices.

Allie Fox throughout the movies was always going against what his family wanted and the current of nature; upstream, against the ocean current, and against the local customs by essentially ignoring the natives lifestyle and customs.  

 

No comments:

Post a Comment