Cider House Rules (Film Paper)

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In the film "The Cider House Rules", we are introduced into the lives of orphans and doctors living together in an orphanage in Maine. In this orphanage, the leader of the house, Dr. Wilbur, performs births for women who do not desire to keep their children and he also performs abortions on women seeking them. In this pre-World War Two era, we get to know a young orphan named Homer who grows up to be an apprentice to Dr. Wilbur. It is through Dr. Wilbur's teachings that Homer learns how to perform births and abortions within the orphanage, and it is within his home that he sees the outcomes of seemingly irresponsible adults having children. Homer's stance on abstaining from sex and his attitude against abortions at the beginning of the film is challenged when he decides to leave the orphanage with a young couple and make a life for himself. The couple, who had come so that the woman, Candy, could get an abortion, helped Homer begin his own life and set him up at an apple-picking operation where he would live and work closely with immigrants and African Americans. When World War II begins and Wally, Candy's boyfriend, gets drafted, Homer begins a love affair with her and his previous stance on abstinence seems to fall away. Homer's co-workers and roommates soon discover one of the young black women has become pregnant and is seeking an abortion, when Homer learns of the devastating circumstances she has been put in, he takes it upon himself to perform a safe, medically sound, albeit illegal abortion for her, despite his original stance on the issue. At the end of the film both Homer and Dr. Wilbur decide that in order to do what is right, they must first break some laws in order to achieve it. Thus, in the end, the "cider house rules" must be broken in order to do what's best for these characters. For this film, the time period is set in the World War II era. We see

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