In White Bear, Victoria has been going through this torture
everyday for the past three weeks. The only problem is she has no idea who she
is or why she’s going through everything that she’s going through. We watch her
as she goes through and we have a natural sympathy for her because we don’t understand
why she’s having to go through all of this. We feel for her and it kept us on
edge because we wanted to know and understand why she was going through. When
watching the film, I sympathized with her because I thought that she was
completely lost. I thought she lost her daughter and her husband. I felt as
though she went through something major and was just trying to escape the world
by committing suicide. The pills on the floor and the bandages around her
wrists suggested to us that she was trying to commit suicide and she honestly
thought that she was trying to kill herself also. When she walks around the
house, she is confused on where she is. Nothing in this place looks familiar to
her. She sees pictures, but isn’t sure of who the people are to her. She walks
around and she doesn’t understand why people are after her. Who is she and why
is she being tortured? She just wants answers and no one is giving her any
answer. She “befriends” someone who she feels that understands the torture she’s
going through, but she still has no answer on who she is and why she’s going
through the things that she is going through. She carries a picture of a little
girl, who she thinks is her daughter, because she wants to find her. Where is
her daughter? Where is her family? Who is she and why is she going through
this? That answer seemed so unclear in the beginning, but as the story goes on
we receive those answers. The little girl was not her daughter. She was
actually the little girl that Victoria and her fiancé abducted and then killed.
When we found out that she helped torture and kill this innocent child, our
sympathy for her went away. The plot twist actually shocked most of us. When we
learned who she was, our sympathy moved away from Victoria, but to the littler
girl and her family. But the question still remains, is Victoria still the
person who committed the crime? They erase her memory and she is going through
the same thing everyday, but only once. So, is she the same person who
committed the crime? Is she the same person experiencing the torture everyday?
Who is she, really?
6 comments:
I agree that I can not really make a decision if she is the same person that committed the crime or not. I do think had she only been through this once as a punishment then she would be the same person because she would have known she was wrong and she would have learned from the experience but because she goes through this every day, she can not remember much and I don't think she is really even learning much from it. It doesn't seem like the best way to punish people to make them learn and pay for their mistakes if they can't remember it.
I agree with you that the question can be raised. She's done an unthinkable thing, yet she doesn't know it. The circumstances surrounding the original crime are nonexistent. Is she really the same Victoria? Could she actually commit the act again? The sympathy we had for her in the beginning is shifted once we find out what she's really done, who she truly was, but does it really disappear. Sure, we immediately change our opinion of her, but then we go on to find out what has been happening to her since the trial. Torture, continuous torture. Daily fear and uncertainty and confusion. We definitely have a sympathy for the little girl, but she's long gone. We have a dislike and loathing for the fiance, but he's met his maker. The only one still suffering here is Victoria. We may see her in a different light, but we now have to pity her situation. She's paying for mistakes and wrongs she doesn't even know she did.
I believe it is a genuine question to ask if she even is the same person and after watching it twice and thinking about it more I genuinely do not think she is the same person which leads to even more evidence that this act is so wrong and unjust. She deserves punishment no doubt but one that will actually benefit society not just torture a human whose soul does not even know who they are anymore.
I think that is an important question to raise when considering who she is. I think it is unjust that they punish her in the way that they do. Erasing her memory is too far over the line of justice. She is not the same person one day that she was the day before. It is easy to over look the severity of erasing her memory. The film does a good job of avoiding her memory of all the rest of her life. It only shows the memories she has of the little girl and her boyfriend. However, something to consider is the fact that they erase the good moments of her memory not just the crime she committed. That is wrong to take away her whole life from her over the crime that she committed.
In my opinion, Victoria is still the same person physically, but mentally she is not. Her mind is pretty much blank except for the few flashes of memory she has from the old her, and they are too scrambled to be complete thoughts. Every time they wipe Victoria's brain, she has to relearn who she is, which means she did not know who she was at first. She has no idea that she is a murderer and child abductor. She cries on the game show because she had no idea who she was and to find out who she really is in front of millions of people makes her feel even more guilty. If they had put her on display like this while she was completely aware of who she was, erased her memory, and then made her live through the day one more time, I would say that was the same Victoria who committed the crime; after three weeks of brain erasing, she has no idea who she was the day before.
All of the comments and original post I am in agreeance with. She is not the same person that committed the crime, due to the fact that her memory of the crime has been eased. The process of having her learn her lesson is not effective in any means what so ever. You cannot punish someone that does not even remember or know what they have done. Yes, what she did is not in anyways forgiven, but the self that is going under the torture does not recognize exactly why she is. To make her actually learn and experience her wrong doings, they should do the same process but instead only once with her memory intact.
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