Gattaca

‘After all, there is no gene for fate.’ Gattaca suggests that we are responsible for our own destiny. Discuss.

The world of Gattaca is one in which one’s fate is seemingly pre-determined by his genes. From the schooling that a person gets, to the type of work that he would get later on in his life, desire seemed to be irrelevant, with the genetic make-up being either his passport to a prosperous life, or his ‘ball and chain’. In such adversity, however, we see Vincent triumph over all the obstacles that having defective genes can bring upon a person, and achieve what everyone believed was an impossible goal. Gattaca shows that the human spirit is the most essential gene in achieving success.

The world in which Vincent lived was a place
where people lived their lives as were pre-destined by their genes. It was a world where people with defective genes or ‘invalids’ were satisfied with living out their lives miserably, content to work as the superior race’s servants, working as their janitors and cleaners. They had given up any hope of leading a productive life because ever since birth they had been told that their genes made them inferior. Indeed, we saw the fundamental building blocks of our existence
, our genes, become the main source of segregation in the community.

Vincent became an exception to this system.
Being a ‘god-child’, Vincent’s genes were defective in many aspects and he too was classified as an ‘invalid’. He was a person who would never get a chance in life and this was evident ever since his childhood. His parents in favour of Anton, their superior son, overlooked him. He wasn’t given a fair opportunity at employment. His dreams of becoming an astronaut was thought by all to be just that, a dream. The only thing that separated him from the other invalids was his phenominal motivation to reach his goals and a strong and stubborn will to match. Therefore, even with genes that predicted a 99% chance of heart problems, he made this impossible dream a reality, with nothing more than sheer determination and a bit of
luck.

This story shows that genes are not merely enough to achieve success.
People such as Anton and Jerome prove this. Both of them had been genetically engineered to be perfect in every aspect. They had the potential to be world-beaters. However, both failed to live up to their own expectations. Anton twice lost in the games of ‘Chicken’ that he played with Vincent and Jerome had given up on life after he came second in a swimming competition. While Anton lived as a frustrated detective, Jerome was confined to life in a wheelchair after attempting to commit suicide before he eventually ended his pointless existence by burning himself in the incinerator. Jerome especially had given up on a life which seemed to end when he only won silver. Jerome’s expectations of himself led him to his down fall, as Vincent said, “Jerome suffered from another type of burden, the burden of perfection.” Jerome believed that his genes would see him through his life, enabling him success in whatever he did. When he discovered this was not the case, he lost all hope and gave up on
life.

Even with his defective genes, Vincent achieved more success than Anton and Jerome. His will power and his determination were displayed in how he said “…I never saved anything for the swim back” to Anton during the second time he beat him. Vincent had a clear objective and did everything in his power, legal as well as illegal to achieve it. He was willing to risk everything to achieve his goals. He was not afraid to fight a system that was trying to do everything in its power to prevent him from reaching his goals. He overcame the many obstacles such as the urine and blood tests, with some assistance from the doctor who took the samples. However, this only confirms the idea that when a person is determined enough, then luck will start going his way as well.

This story portrays the message that genes only tell us of what potential we have. They only give an indication of what a person can turn out to be, rather than what a person will turn out to be like. If this had been the case, Vincent would have died long before he went into space, Anton would have won all those games of ‘Chicken’ and Jerome would have been a gold medalist in every race he took part in. But none of these things happened. Vincent, with his weak genes, out-performed and out-smarted Vincent, Jerome and the many other ‘valids’ who were supposed to be superior to him. He made his own destiny. In this way, this movie shows us that our motivation, determination, courage and will to succeed are what make us human. These are the qualities that determine our destiny, not strands of DNA.