Christian Culture and Imagery - Research Paper Example

?Se7en and the Seven Deadly Sins Released in 1995, Se7en is a gritty, noir piece that follows two detectives in an un d as they hunt for a serial killer. The two detectives differ substantially from one another. Detective Somerset has worked the city for many years and is tired of working cases that have no solution and of the city, for which violence and apathy appears to be encouraged. In contrast, Detective Mills is young and ambitious, having transferred to the city because of the challenge and believes that any crime can be solved with enough commitment. The movie focuses on a series of murders that appear to follow a theme, that of the seven deadly sins. The movie is immersed in Christian culture and imagery, with emphasis on the way that sins or crimes that were once considered to be repulsive, immoral and horrific are now accepted and generally ignored. As a motif the seven deadly sins are widely known, and generally accepted as part of Christian culture. Despite popular belief, the idea of there being seven specific sins does not originate from the bible, but reports of the current list date back to the 6th century . Pope Gregory the First, and Saint Thomas Aquinas also reaffirmed the list, ingraining it into the Catholic church in the process . The list was made famous in Dante’s The Divine Comedy an epic poem that describes the journey that Dante took through Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. In his examination of Purgatory, Dante details seven levels of torture each of which is associated with one of the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. In Dante’s poem, each sinner is punished based on which of the seven sins they were the most involved with during their life . The Divine Comedy itself is mentioned numerous times throughout the movie, with Somerset using it as a reference when he begins to suspect that the modusoperandi for the killer is the seven deadly sins, as described by Dante. The book is also used by the killer to understand the nature of each of the deadly sins, as well as for inspiration in his crimes. The first sin that is confronted in the movie is that of gluttony. Gluttony is most commonly associated with over-eating or excessive drinking, but can also be extended to include over-indulgence or consumption of any particular item. This is considered a sin as it provides for the body while neglecting the soul and the mind. In addition, gluttony on the part of one individual often leads to not enough food for the poor and hungry .This is the only murder for which the name of the sin is not immediately obvious (Somerset finds it written behind the fridge on reexamining the scene), although most viewers already know of the role that the seven sins play through advertising for the movie and even the title itself. Much like the sinners in Dante’s purgatory, the murder victim was punished in such a way as to fit his crime. He was fed spaghetti sauce continuously until a kick to the stomach from the murderer finally killed him. When John Doe, the psychopath that the detectives are chasing, later talks about the victim, he does so with disgust. He considers that someone who eats as much as the victim should be the brut of jokes, that being around them would make most people sick. In society in general, gluttony is an interesting sin, and one that bears a complex and fascinating history. Until the beginning of the Renaissance, the main danger of gluttony as a sin was based on the idea of people becoming obsessed with food to the point of idolatry. It was thought that a person who became focused on food in this manner would be diverted from following God. As society advanced, fear of gluttony as a sin decreased, and signs of overeating became evidence of wealth and means. Over the last 50 or so years, society has shifted again, with concerns about the way that overeating affects health, and a heavy focus on body image. As such, gluttony has once more been brought to the forefront, although now it is considered less as a sin and more as something to be abhorred or pitied , much like the way that John Doe reacts to it. The second sin was identified the following day with the murder of Eli Gould, a defense attorney. Gould was bled to death, and the word greed was written in blood on the floor. The punishment given to Gould for his sin of greed is a reference to a Shakespearean text, The Merchant of Venice . This villain of the story is cruel and exacting, demanding the letter of the law with no sense for humanity even though it would mean the life of one of the protagonists. A pivotal scene in the play is where the villain, Shylock, demands a pound of flesh from his victim. In the play, Shylock is defeated and he never has the chance to exact the revenge he desires, however, the same is not true in Se7en. The detectives find that the murderer forced Gould to cut out a pound of his own flesh, which resulted in him bleeding to death. Like gluttony, greed is a sin of overindulgence. It is about wanting more than a person ‘should’ need, or desiring more things when the person already has more than adequate. It often has a strong focus on money, and greedy people are often obsessed with the acquisition of more money, no matter what it costs other people. In modern times greed is often personified by lawyers and corporations. This can be seen by the Wall Street protests of recent months, where one of the main focuses is against corporate greed. Here, the general public has become enraged and discontent, feeling that they are being taken advantage of by large corporations, who seek maximum profits while many every day people struggle finding the money to buy food and clothing. This sin has a biblical basis, with Jesus saying “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” . With both victims John Doe went to considerable lengths to make them ‘pay’ for their crimes in a suitable manner, the message he was making was more important than the crime itself. It is a clue from that crime scene that leads the detectives to the third body and with it the third sin, sloth. This particular scene reveals a significant amount about the motives of the killer. The victim is a pedophile, identified only by his first name, Victor. As his punishment, John Doe had bound him to the bed, photographing him each day of the ordeal. When the detectives found Victor, he had been bound for a year to the day. While he was still alive, both his mind and body had deteriorated, and it was only a matter of time before he died. The amount of time and planning that had been put into the torture of the man emphasizes the peculiar nature of John Doe and the effort he is prepared to put into both making his point known and torturing his victims. As a sin, sloth is unusual, and not as solidly defined as other sins. Historically, the term was related to apathy, lack of joy and sadness. In Dante’s The Divine Comedy, the sin was the "failure to love God with all one's heart, all one's mind and all one's soul" . The name for the term is thought to come from the animal the sloth, which spends most of its day resting. As a consequence the use of the term has changed to mean laziness either in terms of a person not being willing to act or not being willing to care. The connection between the victim and the sin is not as clear for this crime as the previous two, which provides some indication that John Doe is modifying facts to fit his reality. However, Victor has done little with his life, so perhaps this is the link to sloth. Between this crime and the next, a marked change comes over the case. Using illegally obtained library records the two detectives visit the apartment of a man who had been reading many of the books that they had used to research the seven deadly sins. This man turns out to be their murderer, who shoots at them and takes off running. Although they give chase the man gets away and they are left with his apartment from which to gather clues. The information from the room leads them to a prostitute and the word lust. The woman was killed using a strap on dildo with a knife attached to it. John Doe forced the man who had come to see the prostitute to wear it and then have sex with her. Lust is one of the most widely recognized in our culture. The term technically means the uncontrollable desire for something; however, this is almost always taken to mean sex . The term conjures up images of pornography, broken marriages, affairs and sexual images used in advertising. Stories of lust are common throughout our history, such as Helen of Troy from Greek mythology, who was abducted by Paris as a consequence of his lust for her, a deed which sparked the beginning of the Trojan War. Lust also plays a large part in modern society, with advertisers and movie directors taking advantage of the sexual nature of human desire to sell products or to draw interest. Many advertisements feature scantily clothed men or women, even when the products that are being sold have little or nothing to do with these. The next victim was a model, found dead in the bedroom of her apartment. John Doe had mutilated her face, cut off her nose and then carefully bandaged her face. He did not kill her directly; instead he left her with a choice. He glued a telephone to the palm of one of her hands and a bottle of sleeping pills to the other, either she called for help and had to live with the scars of what he had done to her, or she killed herself with the sleeping pills. Clearly she chose the latter, indicating that John Doe was correct in his analysis of her being prideful. Pride is an interesting topic, as not all aspects of it are inherently sinful. The opposite to pride is humility and it is often considered that the ideal response lies in between these two extremes. A person should be aware and take pride in their accomplishments, but not to the extent that they are arrogant and conceited The last two sins, and victims, do not follow the pattern that had been established up till this point. John Doe explains this by saying that he had to change plans once the detectives found him. It is also clear that the detectives had some effect on him as well, as he admits to admiring them, and being envious of Mills’ wife and his family life. Rather than leaving two bodies for the detectives to find, as he has for the rest of the murders, John Doe instead turns himself in. It is clear that he remains in control throughout the process, manipulating the detectives into escorting him to the site of the final two bodies. During the drive, both the detectives and the viewer learn much about John Doe and what he is aiming to do. He is a man with no identity because he chooses to be that way. He has little in the way of bank records, and there is nothing that can link him to a real name. He cuts off the pads of his fingers so that there is nothing to tie him to his crimes, and perhaps so there is nothing to link him to a real person. His religious views become apparent here. He sees himself as an instrument of God, acting to punish men for their crimes and in the process to provide an example that will shake people out of their apathy. He believes that what he has done will be seen as a masterpiece, something that will be remembered, remarked on and that people will change as a consequence of it. As John Doe leads the detectives to the location of the bodies, a man arrives with a package. Somerset goes to see what is happening while Mills waits with John Doe. As Somerset opens the box, he realizes exactly what John Doe is planning, and worse still, realizes that it is likely to succeed. He runs back to the pair, yelling at Mills to drop his gun. Confused and reluctant, Mills does not, which gives John Doe the chance to play his hand. He tells Mills that he had gone to see Mills’ wife, to try and recreate with her the life that she shared with her husband. When she did not respond, he took a souvenir, her head. It was this that was in the box Somerset had opened. Consequently, John Doe’s final two killings were that of Mill’s wife, and himself, through spurring Mills into taking revenge. In doing so, John Doe’s masterpiece was complete, although he had compromised himself in the process. In the first five killings, he had killed in order to punish the victims for their particular sin, and they had been killed in a manner that was torturous to them. His sixth victim had committed none of the seven sins. Rather, it was John Doe who had. The seventh victim could be considered either Mills or John Doe himself. Certainly, it was Mills who acted on his anger and bitterness by shooting John Doe, and Mills would have to pay the price for that act. Yet, it was John Doe who died. Throughout Se7en human sin and apathy were an overriding theme. Both Somerset and John Doe were frustrated at human society, particularly in the city that they inhabited. Somerset talked of the way that there are more corpses and hidden bodies in the city than alive people, and nobody wants to get involved in helping anyone else, no matter what is happening. John Doe talks of the way that aspects of human personality and action that were once considered deadly sins are now condoned and ignored. While both men saw the same problem, the solutions they found were different, as were their approaches to life and to people. The seven deadly sins that John Doe was making examples of are a strong part of Christian religion, particularly the Catholic denomination . Through strong filmmaking and theology, the movie portrays the crusade of two separate groups (John Doe and the detectives), against the same foe. All seven sins are very much a part of society today, and as both Somerset and John Doe observed they are something we have become apathetic about, accepting them because they are normal and common. Works Cited New International Version Bible. Zondervan, 1984. Print. Bloomfield, M.W. "The origin of the concept of the seven cardinal sins." The Harvard Theological Review 34.2 (1941): 121-128. Print. Cross, Saint John of the. Dark Night of the Soul: And Other Great Works. Bridge-Logos, 2007. Print. Epstein, J. Envy: The seven deadly sins. Oxford University Press, USA, 2003. Print. Fincher, D. Se7en. 1995. Lyman, S.M. The seven deadly sins: Society and evil. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1989. Print. Prose, F. Gluttony: the seven deadly sins. Vol. 2: Oxford University Press, USA, 2006. Print. Sayers, D.L. "Introduction". Purgatory. Penguin, 1955. Print. Shakespeare, W. The Merchant of Venice. The Oxford Shakespeare. Ed. Hallo, J.L.: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print. Solomon, R.C. Wicked pleasures: meditations on the seven" deadly" sins. Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc, 2000. Print.  Read More