Dillon Dwyer
Mr. Motter
Honors Philosophy
4 November 2010
The Purple Rose of Reality
What is a real reality? To us, it would be all that we perceive and experience each day.
But to, let’s say, a movie character, reality would be only what has been scripted and what they
have experienced. There is apparently no real or universally known and understood reality, only
a reality we have known our whole lives. Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo presents
contrasting ideas of what is real and what is imaginary, as well as proper and improper ways to
function in a normal society.
Plato states “the state is the individual writ large.” By this, he’s proclaiming and
preaching a certain way of living. When living by Plato’s standards, one is expected to keep
their desires under control, and to live a productive life rich in knowledge. However, it’s quite
obvious that Cecilia’s husband, Monk, is not following Plato’s ethos. Cecilia knows that he is
sleeping around and tries to, for lack of a better term, “build forts” with as many women as
possible. He gambles what little money he and Cecilia earn, and whenever he’s home with
Cecilia, he never contributes to any of the work that must be done, whether it’s cooking or even
just taking care of himself. Monk allows for his appetite to take complete control, and this
causes problems in his marriage. Cecilia can no longer deal with his constant mistreatment of
her, so she leaves, but never completely. Cecilia too allows for her appetite to take the forefront.
She desires to leave her husband and find real love, not the apparent love that Monk has for her.
Her appetite runs wild with power as she runs off with both Gil Shepherd and Tom Baxter.
However, her behavior cannot be compared at all to that of her husband’s. What she does is not
something that occurs regularly for her. She isn’t constantly running off looking for someone
new to bring pleasure to her life, while Monk is. Therefore, her desires can be argued as
necessary since all humans deserve some amount of happiness in their lives, but not to excess,
like, Monk.
The Purple Rose of Cairo is simply riddled with connections to Plato’s divided line.
Perhaps the most obvious and powerful connection would be the attitudes and actions of the
characters from the movie within the movie. First off, we are witnessing a representation of a
person, inside of an image (the actual movie). This just takes us deep into the basement of the
unreal. Also, the characters trapped inside the movie reel have some knowledge of the outside
world, but only so much. Perhaps they only know what the person who played them knew when
that actor was “creating” the character during filming. However, it might also depend how
seriously an actor takes his role when filming. Tom Baxter, who was played by Gil Shepherd,
seems to know much less of the world outside the bounds of his black and white movie world
than the rest of the characters in his movie. He is astounded by every new experience that occurs
in the “real” world. He has no idea what love making is (since there is always a fade out when
this is about to happen), and he believes that the fake money he was given on the set of the
movie is actual money that can be used in the outside world. His perception of reality is only
that of the movie he is in.