Thursday, July 2, 2009

'Take the Parcel, Feel It and Pass It On, That's All You Can Do'


There's a metaphor in the 2006 movie 'The History Boys' (based Alan Bennett's 2004 award-winning play) that seems to work particularly well - for me - in catching the experience everyone probably has of striving for their necessarily tentative and incomplete 'meaning of life'.

The metaphor is being passed a parcel, feeling through the wrapping to intuit the contents and then having to pass it on.

This metaphor is offered by Hector (Richard Griffiths), the general studies teacher of final year students in a secondary school in the UK in 1983 ...


... during a excursion in 1983 of teachers and boys to a medieval abbey ...


It's been ringing round in my head ever since I saw the film ...



... so I thought it was a sign for a post!

2 comments:

  1. Yes, a metaphor for life. Brilliant. Will look for movie. Thank you.

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  2. hey anon

    it's a great movie - obviously from a stage play but sometimes trying to make something from the theatre into something else can be problematic - and it can be best to leave things as they are

    glad u liked the clip - there's a website i can give you where people share movies - you can download it - takes a while and you may have issues with the whole concept butjust tell me if you're into this

    CYA

    nick

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