Themes
Numerous essays have been written on the themes in Magnolia, such as regret; loneliness; the cost of failed relationships as a result of parents, particularly fathers, who have failed their children; cruelty to children and its lasting effect (as demonstrated by the implied sexual assault perpetrated on Claudia by Jimmy); familial violence (as evinced by the opening scene, in which a boy is murdered by his mother); not all events and their results can be controlled, but an individual can control his or her own actions and that, to some degree, mistakes of the past cannot simply be erased ("We might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us"); exploitation; and the limits of forgiveness.
Read more about this topic: Magnolia (film)
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)