Allegory In The Town Of Dogville

Von Trier presents the town of Dogville in a crummy, campy yet eye opening setting giving the sense of something bigger than itself. Despite being located in the Rocky Mountains near
Georgetown, Dogville could be anywhere in the United States, but is a place defined by the gold rush of barely a couple years before, in the timeline of the film, and is a strong allegory to the state of the United States at the time of the films conception. The issues with the United States are apparent in the hypocritical scenes that Von Trier definetly picks apart and reveals the extremely political views of a country Von Trier has never even been to. And these views essentially cover the three basic points of political Enlightenment: Equality, Fraternity
and
Liberty, which are views created during the French Revolution, but also are embedded into the
US constitution. The film “Dogville” opens up on a lovely young woman “Grace played by Nicole
Kidman arriving in the small Colorado mountain town of “Dogville” with the sounds of gun shots in the distance which lead Tom who follows the shots to find grace wandering around.
After debating with the town, they reluctantly agree to hide the fugitive Grace believing that it is their moral duty to help her and provide her with shelter in exchange for favors, but soon the
Hodge 2 towns good grace turns into abuse of power, starting with the women having Grace preform all the chores they hate most and eventually evolves into the rape of grace by one man and expands into all the men of the town, In a bizarre scene, a young boy who she teaches, demands that he punish him by giving him a good spanking. She refuses, but he says if she doesn't, he'll tell his mother she did it anyway. In other words she becomes a slave to the townsfolk of dogville giving a jab at Americas checkered past relating to slavery. These scenes also show the liberalized view grace has of people believing they have the right to do as they wish no matter the repercussions even upon herself, which is a view many Americans hold as a right given to them.
This is an interesting moral paradox in it owns right; such a belief is obvious to most strong liberals, yet in the modern context is grounded in the free market capitalist beliefs. This is a belief that however that coincidentally entraps her in the town of Dogville. In dogville Grace goes through a series of events that create the end result that is anti-freedom.
Grace's freedom is first restricted, but eventually is gone all together until she is nothing more than an sexual slave to the men and women of dogville, In this way the moral code of Fraternity, based in democracy used in the united states and around the modern world, can seem flawed when compared to the actions of the participating citizens of the town of dogville. The ideals of the perfect community takes on a very obvious and appropriate American tone here, and these ideals are related to the political writings of John Locke, whose basic thoughts on the matters of government were that communities were only important and properly functioning if property owning men came together to protect their individual interests as a self-serving group, that must accept that in order to function something must be given up, in Graces case she gave up her freedom for the betterment of the community. As such the purpose of grace was solely for the enjoyment of the
Hodge 3 town folk of dogville; the only legitimate political power in dogville were the men who used grace the most to serve this end, using their democratic system to decide who gets her next.
This is core to the frontier spirit of the America ideals using democracy to get what they want even at the cost of others rights and freedoms, and tellingly Dogville uses this with it clearly being a former frontier town, with its now spent mine and sense of being by for good.
Liberty and individual freedom is amusingly compromised in the democracy of the town of dogville.
What at first seems to be the workings of a well-oiled democratic machine in the town is actually nothing more than the ruse of a community that praises an individual’s rights, if that individual character is in a position of strength amongst the community like Tom. “In
Dogville's situation, this only relates to the people who were born and raised there; everyone else is an outsider and therefore powerless” (skemster). This can also be radially seen in western countries like the United States of America where immigration is a big concern to many. Illegal alien workers are put up with for the most part as long as they keep under the radar and preform the jobs and tasks most Americans don't want to do, for example how grace is used to do all the tasks the people of dogville no longer want to do themselves. The film dogville has a majorly skewed view of America's view on liberty and natural rights. The view around the world compared to America accepts the fact that one’s individual liberty is only a small part of the political world that holds a country together, that one’s personal liberty cannot be held over the wellbeing of the country as a whole. But to Americans this is un-acceptable in most cases, we
as a society believe we all come first and damn those who our choices might effect in most cases.
Richard Tawney, put it, 'every man should have his liberty and no more, to do unto others as he would that they should do unto him.' And in this way the townsfolk of dogvilles view on liberty
Hodge 4 and that what they are doing to grace for the good of the town is completely one sided violating the simple liberty’s grace should hold.
At the climax in the final moments of the film you see grace break her embedded beliefs in peoples liberty, having enough of this life she has been living for months; she seizes the moment, after tom has a moral break and contacts her mobster father to come get her. She takes this chance to slaughter all the townsfolk of dogville with the exception of the dog because it was the only character that never did any wrong to grace. This raises the question is the justice of grace and the gangsters barbaric or is it a representation of the American way of life that the strong can stomp out the little if they have done something wrong? Or was the film a simple representation of the fragile state of the Americans view on liberty and the political views of the time period. Well it was both using the town of dogville to represent the skewed view of
Europeans and others who have not come to America, essentially the three basic points of political Enlightenment: Equality, Fraternity and Liberty are strained or gone all together In the
United States of America.