The Alienation Of Benjamin In The Film The Graduate

Characters are the most important part of every story. These are the tools filmmakers use to show the audience their world and their views. In New Hollywood in particular filmmakers used characters to present their themes to anyone willing to watch. Although it was a type of cinema based around originality many of the protagonist had common features. In particular every protagonist in the films viewed in class seem to feel a deep sense of loneliness and alienation from society. It seems ironic that the feeling of alienation can often be the catalyst that brings people together. In many of the films, characters seem driven together because of their inability to connect with anyone else in society. One of the clearest examples of this is the character of Benjamin in the film The Graduate. Benjamin is a character who seems more then isolated, he is a character completely alienated and one who is drowning in

Much like in Easy Rider the protagonist in Five Easy Pieces is alienated and lonely due to his inability to fit into either the lower or higher classes of society. The main protagonist Bobby was raised in the high-class society only to leave it for the life of a lower class working man. Much like the characters in Easy Rider Bobby pretends to fit on one of the ends of the spectrum. Bobby tries to live the life of a worker but is far too educated to continue. His friends and girlfriends are nothing but play toys to him yet the upper classes seem to bore and disturb him with their pseudo intellectualism. Because he cannot fit on either end of the spectrum Bobby becomes a outcast, alienated by both extremes only to discover there is nowhere else to go. Like in Easy Rider and in the Graduate Bobby tries to escape but instead of a bus or a bike he uses a truck in order to search for a middle ground where he can be fully accepted and shed off the loneliness of living a