“Meet Joe Black”: Thematic Response

As humans, we need to understand that everything has to come to an end. The writers in the movie “Meet Joe Black” exposed this theme by not making us feel sad about death. When you watch this movie, you don’t cry, you understand that Joe has to leave and Bill Parish is going to die. Just like Bill said “There is nothing for sure in life but death and taxes.” By the way that the writers present the movie, you understand that everything comes to an end just as the ultimate theme states. Some conversations repeated throughout the story regarding the theme would be the experiences in life. For example, the Jamaican woman in the hospital wanted Joe to “take her” because she understood it was her time. She even said in the movie that, at one point or another, we are all lonely in the end as Bill Parish expressed when he was talking about his wife dying. She told Joe that she understood she was dying, but you could tell that she was content with the fact of it. These conversations help us understand that once we experience all that life has to offer, that someone, whether it is you or the people you are leaving behind, will be lonely in the end. Many little themes were portrayed by the characters. Death was obviously represented by Joe Black. Love was seen in the characters Susan, Joe and Parish. It was seen in Susan because she showed Joe how to love, and be loved. Love was seen in Parish because he showed compassion in everyone he met and by the way he showed his love for his daughters and the loss or his wife. Joe clearly showed love by loving Susan. When he wanted to take her with him, he let her go leaving her lonely. But after he left, as a “present “ he let her have back the young man she had met in the coffee shop whom she had really fallen in love with. The main theme was shown in Bill Parish because he had experienced all that life had to offer for him. He had experienced the joys in life from the materialistic objects, to the loves of his life,