Generation Gap in the Graduate

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Lauren Lindsey 9-26-14 The Graduate In The Graduate (Nichols, 1967), Mike Nichols addresses the generation gap by presenting different kinds of emptiness in relation to each generation. Both principle characters, Ben Braddock (Hoffman) and Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft) suffer from emptiness in their lives that they are trying to fill. Ben’s emptiness comes from his anxiety about future. He has gone to college, received many awards, but now he is unsure of what comes next. He is at the peak of his youth and he has no idea what to do with it. Mrs. Robinson’s emptiness is the exact opposite. Her emptiness comes from regret her past. At a young age, she married a man that she didn’t love because of a child that she wasn’t expecting. She never got to truly experience her youth. Because of this, Ben and Mrs. Robinson are in the affair for very different reasons. Ben is looking for direction from Mrs. Robinson while Mrs. Robinson is looking for someone to experience her lost youth with. Ben sees Mrs. Robinson as someone that gives him guidance while Mrs. Robinson only sees Ben as an object. Ben is constantly trying to talk to her and develop a relationship; while Mrs. Robinson would rather they didn’t form any kind of emotional connection. This clearly showed the generation gap by having Ben, someone with his whole life ahead of him and is trying to figure out the world, juxtaposed against Mrs. Robinson, someone who has wasted her life and is trying to find some way of forgetting and even erasing her
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