Progression Of Characters In The Film E. T

In the movie, E.T, the closet scene after Elliot’s siblings discover E.T, conveys a narrative progression from within the span of the beginning to the end of the scene. As a result, it is with the aspects such as character goals, changing knowledge, and emotion evoking performances, that the risk of having his siblings tell their mother about E.T, in particularly Gertie, transitions into Elliot’s siblings promising to keep it a secret instead.
For starters, this is displayed through the shift of character goals that Gertie has throughout the course of the scene. However, it much be stated that the goal that Elliot has directly intersects with his sisters. Thus, like tectonic plates, someone is going to have to shift one way or the other, so the narrative can progress in one of two ways, Elliot’s or Gertie’s. Nonetheless, it appears that in the beginning of the scene, it is clear that Gertie is afraid of E.T and thus it can be implied that she is trying to scream to alert her mother about what is going on. In actuality, seconds before this scene, Gertie does in fact scream for a quick burst of a second, yet is stopped because Michael covers her mouth. Therefore, it is apparent that like any other young child who is frighten, that she is going to scream with the full intention that her mother will hear and come to her aid. On the contrary, Elliot’s goal is
to protect E.T and to make sure to keep him a secret from his mother.
Now, in order to do that he needs to as a short-term goal, keep Gertie quiet, and as a long-term goal, make sure Gertie understands that E.T is not a threat, but
most importantly also that she does not tell their mother. Considering the narrative needs to progress, it is Gertie’s character goal that is shifted from wanting to alert her mother to instead keeping E.T a secret. As a whole, the transition from E. T’s identity being at risk in the beginning, to it being safe with the siblings by the end, is seen with the shift of Gertie’s character goal, which is induced through character knowledge and emotions.
Moreover, character knowledge and the emotion conveyed in the performances of these characters go hand in hand, yet as an individual concept, character knowledge helps progress the story along, while the emotions work as the substantial evidence. In regard to the character knowledge of Gertie, there is not much she knows about E.T in the beginning of the scene, besides the fact that there is this odd and reptile looking creature in her presence. E.T at first glance is not the cutest looking creature, or even the second glance. It essentially takes getting over the initial wave of shock, until anyone can begin to warm up to E.T’s looks. Therefore, it is only obvious that this young and little girl’s first instinct is fear and the impulse to want to scream. In like manner, E.T’s character knowledge is the same as Gertie, due to the fact that in his eyes these humans also look odd, and as a result he screams and tries to hide. In fact, all he knows about the humans are his encounter when he first arrived where he is chased and with Elliot, otherwise he has no idea how Gertie and Michael are going to treat him. Nevertheless, with the knowledge Gertie has at the start, there is no doubt that she would go tell her mother, yet as Gertie starts to discover that E.T is not as dangerous as she first thought, she begins to lower her defenses and as a result that scenario slowly fades. Thus, as the scene progresses, Gertie’s knowledge of E.T increases and in correlation, the narrative moves in a way that would be entirely different if her knowledge is confined to just the fear and urgency she has when first seeing E.T. Altogether though, Gertie’s shift in character knowledge, and correspondingly her character goal, is also supported by the emotion her performance conveys.