Michael Andrews

ENC 1102

Joseph Cottle

18 January 2013

“Gladiator”

Throughout the movie, Gladiator, many themes are thrown around. Gladiator is a story

in which a man must fight in order to seek his vengeance for his murdered family. The

filmmakers use topics such as class, family, and race in order to move the story along.

The first thing I would like to discuss is the relationship between class and family to the

main character, Maximus Decimus Meridius. We first find Maximus as he is leading his army

into a battle against a Germanic tribe. After they win the battle we see Maximus discussing with

Marcus Aurelius about his home and his farm. We can see from this that Maximus is a man of

many classes and families. While he is at the camp with all of his men he is their leader and they

will follow him to the end of the earth. This can be seen later in the film when Maximus is trying

to lead an attack on Rome, and his army is ready to fight for him even though he has been

missing and said to have been killed. This shows how dedicated that his men are to him. Also in

the movie you see how close he is with his men. Maximus is the General of the Army, so you

would think that he would only be concerned about how his men are fighting. But instead you

going into the infirmary and see him watching in vain as his men are being treated for missing

limbs and other fatal injuries from battle. Also you see the level of closeness to his men, in that

he is not afraid to have conservation with one of his men as he is just walking the camp site.

This is shows the family aspect he brings to the army, which is significant in that today’s army

you never see an officer really having that close of a relationship with his troops. Also as a

general Maximus is considered to be a son of Marcus Aurelius and this is significant because

Marcus wants Maximus to take command of the empire when he dies, which shows the

emperor’s trust in Maximus. Also we find that Maximus is the “son I should have had” from

Marcus and the fact that he loves Maximus, he is killed by his real son Commodus for wanting to

give Maximus the power instead of him.

Another class and family relationship that we see Maximus have, is his normal family. In

this stage, Maximus is just a normal man who makes a living farming. His wife and child mean

the world to him and he is fighting in the beginning in order to keep them and his farm safe. But

after Maximus is almost killed by the emperor for not being loyal to him we see that Maximus’

family is in endangered. He hurries home only to find that they have been crucified and burned

to death. Here you can see how he cared for them when as soon as he sees their bodies hung on

his house’s gate he immediately falls down in shock. A few minutes and face full of mucus later

we see him give a kiss to the feet of his dead wife. From that point on we see his family is

always with him, in the toys that his son gave to him showing his wife and the son. And we can

see in the end that he is once again reunited with his family after he is killed in the arena. The

last family and class that Maximus goes through are his gladiator days. In this stage, Maximus is

no more than a slave fighting for his life everyday in order to get to the emperor so that he can

kill him for taking what mattered most to him. At first we see that Maximus is very distant from

the rest of the gladiators, but after the first fight where he is chained to Juba we see that all the

gladiators and the people respect him for his fighting skills. Also he finds a very good friend in

Juba who is able to speak of his plans for the emperor and speak of both of their families. But

once they go to Rome, we see that those other gladiators are now his brother and he wants to

insure that they stay alive. We can see the brotherly love shared by the group when Maximus is

trying to flee to go get his army and he asks his fellow gladiators to help if they want to but they

didn’t have to and all stayed and risked their life in order for Maximus to escape. Also we see

this when Maximus is about to collapse and die, he orders that his men be free and allowed to

live their life and that when they are carrying him out everyone is trying to help their friend. The

best part is at the end his best friend Juba buries the figures of his wife and son in the middle of

the Colosseum and says “I will see you again. But not yet.”