Ţăpean Elena, 1st year, MA Anglo-American StudiesProfessor: Ludmila MartanovschiTheories of Identity30.01.2013

Identity as Human Emotions in Equilibrium

From not feeling anything to feeling everything

Kurt Wimmer, the writer and director, wanted to tell a story about a man who makes a

journey from not feeling anything to feeling everything (Grove). It is a personal journey

that the writer himself has taken in his life, describing the trip as extraordinary in

reevaluating what one has lost and afterwards found exciting. The protagonist does the

same; he changes from a devoted policeman that serves the system into its destroyer in

only several days. This is the primary idea with which the story begins: the protagonist’s

inner journey towards feeling, through which he changes his views and attitudes. One

might ask why the theme of inner transformation and journey is so important; it is,

because the principal element that emerges in the story is the way in which the

protagonist will eventually come to recognize himself, to come face to face with himself

(which happens literary at some point), to stand out of the stream and think as a “concrete

individual.” (Althusser 171)

But first, a description of the protagonist is needed in order to understand who he

is exactly. John Preston is a first class Grammaton Cleric, and he is the first character to

be seen as an emotionless killing-machine, executing those who break the law; that is,

those who dare feel and keep illegal material that inspire emotions (literature, paintings,

music etc.) and those who do not take their daily dose of Prozium, resulting again in

feeling emotions. At the end of the story, the protagonist will change his mind and

opinions about everything that he knew at that point, turning to a noble goal of

reestablishing human’s lost identity, the emotions.

This is what will happen in the following lines, the analysis of this path to

feelings, this inner journey that has consequences in the exterior as well, not only in the

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interior. The key episodes in which the change takes place will be discussed one by one

and given short commentary on what is really happening in the protagonist’s mind. These

episodes are as follows: Partridge’s arguments and death; the accident of dropping a

dose; Mary O’Brien’s arrest and interrogation; the first time he ever heard rain and saw a

rainbow (in the movie) or a red beautiful dawn (in the script); the hidden room in Mary’s

apartment full of diverse objects; saving a dog from annihilation; walking in a

metro/subway; and nevertheless, the last element that completely changes the protagonist

is Mary’s sacrificial death (movie only). Many reviewers like Martin Grove from The

Hollywood Reporter and Steven Horn from Ain’t It Not Cool Review specifically

highlighted the moment when he first meets Mary, explaining that this is the moment

when Preston surrenders the dosage and starts feeling. But one should consider the very

instance when, in the bathroom, Preston ponders upon looking at an amber fluid dose

crashed on the floor: what if he will not take it, what will happen? Likewise, this is what

the audience infers from his movements and facial expressions, if any.

The first key moment is his encounter with his best friend, Errol Partridge, in an

old-aged cathedral at night where he is reading a forbidden book (“it turns out to be the

collected poetry of W.B. Yeats, a notorious Sense Offender.” Ebert). Partridge’s words

will make Preston question in his mind throughout the latter half of the movie about the

terrible things this society has done to thousands of people over the years by stopping

their very nature. For example, the instance when Partridge is arguing with Preston about

how the latter does not know what he is talking about, being that he does not feel “sorry”

or anything (“You don’t even know the meaning. It’s just a vestigial word for a feeling

you never felt.” Screenplay 18) or about their loss of their very nature (“Don’t you see,

Preston. It’s gone. Everything that makes us what we are; traded away.” Screenplay 18).

These two are very important keys that will predetermine the story’s future. Partridge’s

final words of paying the price for feeling (“I pay it gladly” Screenplay 18) will remain in

the protagonist’s mind until the end when fighting against DuPont/Father, he will say that

he will gladly pay (Movie Transcript 38) for reestablishing emotions as the top human

quality, killing DuPont with a blow in the chest. The reviewer Steven Horn from Ain’t It

Not Cool Review considers this Partridge’s fulfilled revenge.

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Partridge’s death is the primary cause which sets the whole chain of events in

motion. It will leave its marks on Preston, when he accidentally drops the night interval

dose, he questions himself then if he should take the morning dose instead, but decides

that he could do without it. The next day (from morning to dawn) he will experience dire

consequences: seeing diverse objects, feeling/touching around things, hearing the sounds

around him, being surprised and so on. All these come to him like a wave, all at once, and

he cannot bear it all by himself, they are too much to handle. After coming home from

work, he experiences nightmares (a consequence that shows the audience/readers that he

didn’t take the next night dose either). He is shocked and afraid because he has seen the

ghosts of the past; he has remembered his wife’s arrest. Then, he hears the rain dropping

and, after removing the translucent grey paper from the windows (which seems that it

was design not to allow people to see the wonders of Nature), he sees the rainbow in its

might (movie) or the red dawn (Screenplay 34). These natural events will encourage and

empower him not to take the doses; even so, he will still be pondering whether it is a

good thing to do, fearing the Clerics will come after him.

These are very rapid and slow instances on which the protagonist walks: he is

neither on the ‘good side’ nor on the ‘bad side’, so to say. He is still very much

pondering, he still does not know what to do or what is he doing, in the first place; but he

will change his view according to what he perceives it is best to do in a given moment.

The second key moment is Mary O’Brien’s arrest. During his investigation

together with his new partner, Brandt, an intuitive reward-hunting Cleric, he questions

Mary’s ‘sense offense’, but she is reluctant to speak with him. He, then, turns her to a

mirror (“Look at yourself!” Screenplay 27), but instead he watches her: hair, blue eyes,

and red lips. Realizing that he is looking at her, he draws back and continues

investigating her house for suspicious objects. Later on, the Enforcers team will devastate

her apartment. It should be noted that here an important aspect takes place in the

protagonist’s already ‘changing’ personality: he saves Mary from being shot by Brandt,

demanding thorough investigation and interrogation as she could not have been able to

provide all the objects all by herself. Thus, Mary is the first ‘individual’ being saved by a

‘changing’ character. It is also worth to mention that by his actions, he will be able to

understand Libria’s situation at the hands of the totalitarian regime later on.

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At the interrogatory house, he questions her actions again, only to be touched by

her hand. Surprised and not wanting his feelings to be exposed, he draws his hand back.

It is his dialogue with her and her arguments that puts weight on his shoulders: “Let me

ask you something... Why are you alive?” Screenplay 31; and then she answers her own

question seeing that he barely comes up with a concrete answer: “To feel. Because you

never done it, you can never know it. But it’s as vital as breath. And without it, without

love, without anger, sorrow - breath is just a clock - ticking.” Screenplay 32.

Nevertheless, he will not recognize the value of her words and his feelings for her until

her “processing.” (“You mean executing, don’t you?” Screenplay 32)

After Mary’s arrest, the Clerics have gone outside and found a yard full of dogs.

Because animals (in general) can generate emotions, they are to be exterminated

immediately. The protagonist stops the shooting, saving one dog, explaining that it

should be taken to laboratory for medical research for any unwanted disease. This fact is

also worth mentioning, because it is another important aspect in the protagonist’s

‘changing’ personality, he saves a dog from being executed and that means that the dog is

the second saved ‘individual’. By this symbolism, he has saved both human (Mary) and

animal (the dog), thus making himself the future savior.

Going back to the investigation, he returns to Mary’s hidden room which contains

various objects from old ages, most notably the music box, where he picks up Beethoven

and rapidly learns how to play it. The music issuing from the horn triggers his feelings at

once, he is moved by its sublimity, he begins sensing happiness, and sudden tears appear

from the corner of his eyes. Also, he ‘plays’ around the room, ‘experiencing’ everything

like a little baby or a little boy. This is extremely interesting, for how it is to feel all of

these at full, conscious age. It makes one feel like a baby; but nevertheless, it says

something: the recuperation of humanity’s ‘old self’, humanity’s ‘old identity’. It is like

regaining one’s lost identity through humanity’s Spirit Mundi; and this is what all those

objects in the room stand for; of course, at a symbolic level. Or an even more elaborate

symbolism, the future man identifies his connections with the past.

Exposing himself to the objects in the room, exposing himself to the ‘real’ human

self, he realizes that this is the true nature of mankind and it should not be destroyed ever.

As a continuant item of remembrance, he takes with him Mary’s red ribbon on which her

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perfume is. This item will remind him of the loved one, or the sweet sense of smell, or

the color red which is the most expressive color of all. This will become a totem-like

object that will remind him that these things are sacred as life itself.

Later on, he is still questioning himself what to do, or what does he really feel for

that woman, or if it is the right thing to do. As such, he goes in the metro/subway,

experiencing for the first time the mass, the population of Libria, how does the people are

affected by the new age/regime. And it surprises him to see black, grey clothing,

expressionless faces, but also feeling the coldness of the bars, and hearing the subway

train’s sounds; it really generates his senses again. Outside the stream, he takes a

newspaper and reads it, but he senses that he is being watched, he turns around and saw

the owner of the newspaper stand looking/staring at him. He freaks out, realizing that the

person feels too and departs immediately fearing he might get caught. This tells the

audience that the population may act to be emotionless in order not to get caught, and it

explains why so many (as appears in the movie) posses forbidden (EC-10; Emotion

Content) objects. This is also like a revelation to him as though he is not alone (in this

‘silence war’).

The ultimate key moment where the protagonist turns fully to the ‘good side’ is

when he tries to save Mary, but couldn’t as she was been processed in the furnace

systems. This sacrificial death (as Mary intended to be: “I’m willing to be a lot more than

the seed, I can tell you. I’m willing to be the soil, I’m willing to be the sun, the very water

- if necessary.” Screenplay 32) is significant, because it marks the protagonist’s alliance

to the Underground, an organization against the system which has its main task to free

Libria from the Father’s fascist-totalitarian regime. And because it marks the moment

where Preston completes his transformation, his end of his journey so to say, being

completely different from the cold-hearted, law-abiding policeman he was in the

beginning. Interestingly, in comparison to the Mary’s failed salvation moment, there is a

‘pre-element’ which is shown in his dream, when Preston’s wife, Viviana, was arrested

for feeling. He did not felt a thing when she was taken away, even though she reached his

neck and kissed him; he was emotionless and unable to understand what she wanted to

say. But now, with Mary, things have changed: he is completely aware of what he is

feeling for her, and acts accordingly, to save her. But couldn’t, as he was too late again.

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All these have been illustrated so as to show the protagonist’s journey, an inner

journey where he moves from an emotionless state to a full emotion sensing state, from a

cyborg to a human being. Precisely, the protagonist’s transformation has taken shape

from an observation of or argument with a close friend, and from an accident of dropping

a dose. These primary instances had tremendous effects on the protagonist; but also

himself, he is the one that through his one judgment did not take his replacement vials

(Screenplay 22). The transformation is caused partly by external forces, partly internal

ones. However, upon looking closely, the internal forces were stimulated by the external

ones which guided the protagonist on other directions than the one paved by the Father.

Now interestingly, if one will look closely, he/she will see the contrasting effect:

in the beginning of the journey he was killing a friend without feeling remorse, and at the

end of it, he was trying to save a friend, feeling something for her, but the latter was

executed by another “authority” (Althusser 182). Quite interesting, the majority of

reviewers, like Martin Grove from The Hollywood Reporter, say that the movie has a

circular form. It is likely so, because the significant words are carefully played in this

manner. An example will be “I pay it gladly” (Screenplay 18) where Partridge first says

this for paying the price of feeling and, later on, Preston uses it to pay the Father’s life for

(in the name of) feelings (Movie Transcript 38). Another example will be Partridge’s

reading of the final line in Yeats’ poem “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”

(Screenplay 17), which is the exact same words DuPont, or the Father, demands Preston

to tread softly on his dreams as the latter was fighting his men (Movie Transcript 38). It is

contrasts and circularity that defines this movie.

As it has been seen, Preston journeys through a wide range of moments, through a

wide range of emotions and through all levels of society (from the authorities to the

population, from humans to animals etc.), discovering what humanity has lost. Ultimately

realizing for himself that suppressing emotions is like suppressing one’s very nature,

one’s own self and one’s own identity. And as an action to recover this lost identity for

himself and for others as well, he will be the one, being the only one, who could stand a

chance against the Father.

The second idea behind the written work and movie, and which is very much

linked with the first one (that of the protagonist’s inner journey) is the emotions that build

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up humans as they are, distinct from concrete and robots, with consciousness and

evaluative processes, reason and feelings. With the capacity of feeling, humans may feel

a variety of emotions: rage, passion, fear, sorrow, happiness, joy and so on. These,

however balanced they are, will always depend on humans’ reasoning and their

inclination to abusive actions. As a result, this dystopian society tries to stop and to save

humanity from destroying itself. The story’s time and space settings encompass the 21 st

century after the Third World War and, with the idea of a possible Fourth, the grand

governors allied together with the pharmaceutics to discover and establish a new era in

which humanity will cease its “inhumanity” towards itself (Screenplay 31). This implied

rearrangements in the structure of politics, military, and everyday life in general.

Moreover, all of these were perceived as necessary for humanity’s survival.

In this world now devoided of feelings, the population’s birth rate is readjusted in

positive standards, war has become a far-far word in the history of mankind, and murders

and crimes are no more. But as in every system, there are rebels who do not sustain this

new age, breaking the law by housing paintings, literature and music; products that were

meant to produce emotions. As Repressive State Apparatuses (Althusser 145), the

Grammaton Clerics’ mission is to destroy all these contraband and kill all the “sense

offenders” (Movie Transcript 4). As it has been discussed above, Preston is the top Cleric

who will handle all the work, removing the rebels once and for all; but as it was seen

through the analysis, there are forces which try to persuade the protagonist, try to

convince him that he is wrong, the system is wrong, because it has shut down what is the

most familiar to human beings, their own emotions that give them their identity along

with their reason, beliefs and personality.

Identity in this case is about human emotions, is what sets humans apart from

other beings and/or inanimate objects. The protagonist realizes this at the end, where he

thinks about Mary, his feelings towards her, the people’s fake dosage, and his life as he

lived it, or rather not lived it. Having understood that he could not continue sensing while

living in a society like this, he must take a stand, doing something, something that will

lead to the regime’s downfall, and the emergence of a new society which will embrace

emotions as a particular characteristic of human identity.

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Works cited

Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York and London:

Monthly Review Press, 1971.

Ebert, Robert. Review Chicago Sun Times. (December 10, 2002). 28 Jan. 2013.

http://www.compleatseanbean.com/eq-review7.html

Equilibrium. Dir. Kurt Wimmer. Prod. Jan de Bont and Lucas Foster. Perf. Christian

Bale, Sean Bean, Emily Watson, Taye Diggs and Angus MacFayden. Dimensions

Films and A Blue Tulip Inc., 2002.

Grove, Martin. The Hollywood Reporter: World without feelings in Wimmer’s

‘Equilibrium’ (November 27, 2002). 28 Jan. 2013.

http://www.compleatseanbean.com/eq-press10.html

Horn, Steven. Ain’t It Cool News Review (October 29, 2002). 28 Jan. 2013.

http://www.compleatseanbean.com/eq-review2.html

Wimmer, Kurt. Equilibrium Early Version Screenplay (July 12, 2002). Provided by

Webmaster JenGE. 28 Jan. 2013.

http://www.equilibriumfans.com/downloads/Equilibrium%28Screenplay%29.pdf

---. Transcript of Equilibrium. Complete Transcript of the Film (Undated). Provided by

Webmaster JenGE. 28 Jan. 2013. http://www.equilibriumfans.com/Transcript.htm

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