Rating of
3/4
barton fink (1991) - explanation
nis - wrote on 01/23/12
1)barton's first sentence in the novel also existed in the bible-this shows his innocence at the time(or his arrogance that the common man is innocent).
2)the peeling wallpaper shows his own mind, decaying day after day in the hell of hollywood.
3)the mosquito always wakes him up urging him to finish the script(urges him to get used to the stressful living of hollywood).
4)chet gives him pins to pin down the wallpaper/his mind from falling appart-this shows that his mind was not in a free-thinking state anymore.
5)charlie who lives for a lifetime at the earle(hell), becomes a part of it psysically(ear infection) & mentally(psycho killer).
6)the box symbolizes the experience barton gained, or what he learned and which will carry for the rest of his life.
7)charlie/mundt represents the always struggling and suffering human race.he is a loving caring neighbour,a man with a regular job and problems with it(like anybody),a man with sexual desires, but also a man with a second psychotic personality and also a nazi!
8)the scene where mundt uncuffs barton symbolizes that he woke him up from his arrogance about the world(especially the fact that he who was his friend and neighbour presented the nazis(heil hitler) who like in the past commited a genosite to the jews,now have killed his family!)
9)Being set free, barton understood that the answer to his writer's block isn't the spirit of humanity(or the common man). but the spirit of the artist and his ability to tell a meaningfull and significant story through his abstract fantasy and reality(experience) and personal feelings.Which is what the ending represents.
10)so before he realized this, the picture of the woman at the beach was only audible.in the end not only it is live, but barton is living it with his own interpretation(diving seagul!).
11)charlie punishes barton by killing the woman he slept with cause he never listened to his stories(the ordinary man's stories).instead he went with the easy solution(sexual life/natural living), making it easy for himself and common-something he never wanted(he wanted to change the world).so we can say that this is the beginning of charlie's personality shift and the only way barton could ever understand.
