Analyzing William Wyler's 'The Best Years Of Our Lives'

Tessa Moroni
Mark McKinnon
ENGL 15
23 September 2014
Hope & Redemption after WWII
Prompt: Discuss how William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives is an examination of the confusion and emotional turmoil experienced by American military servicemen and their families during the aftermath of WWII. Explain how the film’s focus on the three veterans- Al, Fred, and Homer- offers a sense of hope and redemption for them, their loved ones, and all of America.
Thesis: William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives is an examination of the emotional turmoil experienced by the main characters and their families during the aftermath of WWII. Through the confusion the film depicts the hopes and later redemption of Al, Fred, and Homer.
The film is set in
the fictional town of Boone City, Ohio at the ending of World War II. The main characters are coming home after years away from home fighting in the Pacific. Al, Fred, and Homer meet at the airport and board the same plane heading for home. Each man is scared in physically or mentally from their experiences at war. William Wyler’s film The Best Years of Our Lives examines the emotional turmoil experienced by the main characters and their families during the aftermath of World War II. Through the confusion, the film depicts Al, Fred, and Homers hopes and later redemption.
Coming home after years of fighting in WWII, Al, Fred, and Homer talk to each other about what they are hoping and expecting to come home to after being away for so long. Al hopes to see his family the same way as he left them, his beautiful wife and young kids. He is very surprised to see what his children have grown up to be, a sprite young man and a beautiful daughter. Peggy is daughter has grown up into a responsible young women who has a day job. Just as Al has his hopes about his family, Fred expects to see his wife domesticated and has hopes of starting a family. He hopes that getting a job will be easy and that he can find one that is better than his old job of a soda jerk before the war. Just like Al and Fred, Homer has expectations and hopes about his family and loved ones. He hopes that Wilma, his girlfriend, will still accept him even though he lost both of his hands. Homer needs the acceptance of his family and his community.
Assimilating back in to civilian life is both hard for the service man and his family.
It is especially hard when everything and everyone has changed. The experiences of war harbor deep emotional turmoil for Al, Fred, and Homer. When Al gets home after the war, he has a very difficult time readjusting to home life. The first morning he is back, he is surprised and confused to wake up in his room at home, almost like it was a dream. Al did not really feel comfortable in his own home which left him restless. War had taught him to always be on his guard and he has a hard time of letting that go even in the security of his own home. When he goes back to his banking job he realizes that he was not the tough banker he used to be. Al’s boss gives him the job of being in charge of the GI Bill loans given to servicemen coming home from war. Because of his experiences during wartime, he believes every service man deserves his due and approves loans without collateral. Al’s boss ends up having a problem with this and it remains a conflict for Al. Al’s emotional turmoil isn’t as intense as Fred’s, but he is still a changed man due to his wartime experiences. Fred has PTSD, which shows itself by the horrible lifelike nightmares he has daily. His wife, who he married during the war, doesn’t understand him or his PTSD. She believes that he should just be a man and make the nightmares go away. This is just one of the strains that is put on there already fragile marriage. Finding a job for veterans after the war proves extremely tough. Many wives and older children had to get jobs after the bread winner left for war. Because of these hard times Fred couldn’t find a job other than his old soda jerk job. After a fellow service man tells Homer that he lost his hands for nothing, Fred sticks up for his friend causing him to lose his soda jerk job. Losing his job is another of the many strain on his marriage. After coming back from the war he finds that he has an interest in Peggy,
Al’s daughter and cheats on his wife. His relationship with Peggy adds more emotional turmoil to his life. Just as Al and Fred are having a difficult time readjusting to civilian life, Homer is dealing with the fact that he has hooks for hands and without his hooks he is completely helpless.. He hasn’t accepted or dealt with the concept of losing his hands and this causes him to resent himself and his family. Because of Homer’s disability he pushes his family and loved ones away causing a rift in the family. All Homer wants is acceptance for the way he is now and dislikes the way people treat him because of his hooks. He feels as though his hooks are a big elephant in the room. Homer just wants his family and community to treat him like a regular person not a disabled person.
Through the confusion and aftermath of WWII Al, Fred, and Homer find a sense of peace and redemption. Al finds his redemption when he gives a drunken speech to his boss and fellow coworkers on his opinion of giving loans to returning servicemen without collateral and he eventually readjusts to home and work life at the bank. Al also gets to know his children, especially his daughter, and his wife and starts his new life with them. Fred’s redemption involves divorcing his cheating wife and finding a job as a metal junker disassembling old war planes to build houses. This job gives him a fulfilled sense of meaning and will also help him work through some of his PTSD problems. But, Fred’s main savior is Peggy, Al’s daughter, who accepts him for who his is and loves him for it, PTSD and all. Homer’s redemption comes when he finally allows Wilma to understand and witness how helpless he is without hands. As he hoped from the beginning, Wilma accepts and loves him even though he believes in his heart that she could do better. She doesn’t care that Homer is disabled from war and because of her swift acceptance of Homer they get married as previously planned before the war.
In the end, Al, Fred, and Homer find their paths to redemption instilling hope in a nation of returning veterans.