A Simple Plan
Year 11 Single Text, ‘A Simple Plan’
How does Sam Raimi use symbolism in A Simple Plan to communicate the moral message of the film to the audience?
As the director of ‘A Simple Plan’ Sam Raimi uses numerous aspects of symbolism throughout the film to communicate the moral message. Also Raimi’s use of symbolism allows the audience to explore the foreshadowed meanings during the film.
Raimi creates a symbol of death by using ravens. At 9:20 a high angle shot of the black birds is used to signify to the audience that in the first scene a death would occur or that death would be prompted by the actions of the characters. At 11:30-12:00 Hank opens the abandoned plane and is mauled by the ravens thus causing a wound on his forehead by the birds. When symbolically interpreted, this means that Hank can be seen as the character that has the main interaction with death as throughout the film his actions and ideas afflict death upon those around him. Furthermore the darkness of the raven is related to the colour symbolism of black which also represents evil. As observed, the ravens at 9:20 are on a tree surrounded by snow which symbolically communicates the moral message of evil (black) that lurks amongst the good (white).
At 7:13 a fox attacks and kills a chicken which is another example of symbolism that Raimi incorporates. The fox symbolises a domino effect which has great effect on the entire film as at 7:45 the fox runs across the road causing Jacob’s truck to swerve and crash. The symbolism of the fox contrasts with the symbolism of the door frames which metaphorically are the actions that take place by the characters and the consequences that they have to apprehend. Times such as 1:26 and 48:50 show a door frame which the characters have walked through, thus leading them to another door which they further enter. This symbolises that once the character makes a choice and acts upon it, it then...
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