Forrest Gump had all of the virtues and none of the vices. The film about him is almost a continuous display of the cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, prudence and justice, and of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. And there's scarcely a trace of any of the seven deadly sins - pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, or lust.
Forrest was always brave - rescuing platoon members under fire in Vietnam was only the most obvious example. He wasn't inclined to any form of intemperance. He provided for himself prudently, but always ensured that others got their share. In fact, he split his shrimping income with the family of the man who was to have been his partner but who died before they could start the business together. He didn't know anything about theology, but his faith in Jenny was steady and unconditional. He was always hopeful - "life is like a box of chocolates." And he was forever charitable - everyone he touched benefitted from him.
He had no tendency to puff himself up, and he was free from envy of any sort. He was slow to anger, and he was always energetic - running, shrimping, and running again. He made money in spite of himself, and never wanted more. He never overate, and he was surprised even to discover sexual pleasure. He was peculiarly free from all of the vices.
The film is correct in showing him as a self-made, though lucky, man. But it omits to show that there was money in another part of the family. His father was very rich, but he didn't settle any of his fortune on Forrest or on Forrest's mother. It went instead to Forrest's brother, Ronald. Ronald Gump was very like his father, and very unlike his brother.
Ronald wasn't brave, only blustery. He afterward said that he was opposed to the war in Vietnam, but he didn't say anything at the time, and he simply avoided military service with different excuses. He was inclined to overindulge in all sorts of pleasures, and he wasn't very prudent with money - he went bankrupt again and again, and made others go bankrupt, too. Justice, he said, was for dummies; he even avoided paying tax. He had no faith in anyone or anything, and no one wanted to be friends with him, but there were always people who liked to be around him because he had money. He lived on fear instead of hope, fear that something would go wrong if he didn't strike others before they struck him. He wasn't charitable - he told himself that charity was harmful, that it weakened self-reliance. His father liked what he saw, and smiled to see how Ronald shunned the virtues.
But if Ronald was disengaged and cowardly in some ways, he waded fearlessly into the seven deadly sins. No one was ever prouder of himself, or with less reason. He envied others, and satisfied his envy by insulting them and taking whatever he could from them. He was quick to anger and, once he was angry at someone, he never relented. He didn't work hard or exercise much. He got away with that as a young man, but it later caught up with him, and by middle age he was fat from lack of exercise and ignorant from lack of study and serious endeavour. He was greedy for money, and used it as if it could pay for his sins. He was gluttonous to the point where he bought special clothes to hide his weight. He never worried about lust; whenever he had a sexual whim, no matter how degrading to himself or others, he bought what he wanted.
He had all the vices and none of the virtues, and his father was so impressed that he made him a deal. Continue in your ways, he said, and I'll give you all my fortune. And he did - and that's how Forrest and his mother came to be so poor. Ronald despised them for it, and he soon left home. We don't see that in the film, because it wasn't something that Forrest and his mother liked to talk about much. They were sorry for Ronald, but there wasn't anything they could do. They didn't feel ashamed of him - they somehow felt that maybe it wasn't all his fault after all - but they felt sad. For a time, they heard news of him, and they hoped he would get better, but he didn't, and the news stopped coming. In fact, he got so bad that he had to change his name and pretend to be someone else.
He finally got so rich that he didn't have to worry about being caught at anything, because he could always pay to get himself excused. Not only that, he bought himself a lot of honours, and people seemed to admire him more and more. He came to believe that his success had nothing to do with the deal he had made with his father. He had made himself all that he was, he said, and he deserved everything he was getting. And his father, being the kind of father he was, smiled to see it.
Eventually Ronald died, as everyone does, and there are two different traditions about what happened next. One version holds that he was simply extinguished, that Ronald Gump ceased to exist in any form, and that he was soon forgotten. But there is also a somewhat cruel and astonishingly elaborate tradition that he is now suffering for his sins in an afterlife, and that he is a great figure of fun there. The story goes that when he was brought forward for sentencing, he said there had been a mistake, and he insisted on his right to a hearing - and not just any hearing. He wasn't accustomed, he said, to talking to underlings or assistants; he demanded to see God. God would be very sorry if He didn't see Ronald, on account of the offer Ronald was prepared to make Him.
So the devils dressed one of their number up in great flowing robes, sat him on a judge's chair in a courtroom, and brought in Ronald. The judge pretended to be surprised that Ronald was naked, and began to abuse him for showing such disrespect to the court. If he didn't get dressed immediately, the judge said, his appeal would be dismissed. Another devil, dressed as a lawyer, immediately approached and offered to sell him some clothing. But when he found that Ronald had no money with him, he refused to extend credit. "No money, no clothes," said the lawyer. "And no clothes, no case," said the judge. "Take him away." And fifty miniature, grinning devils began to pull at him and to pelt him with little sparks of fire, and he scampered about so ridiculously that everyone in the courtroom laughed and laughed, and their laughter was the last sound he heard before his sentence began in earnest.
I believe the first tradition is more likely the correct one - I can't see what good it would do anyone, least of all God, to go on tormenting Ronald. Still, the second tradition might be useful in persuading people to be good rather than bad. We certainly want our children to be like Forrest rather than like Ronald. We dissuade them from associating with people who even slightly resemble Ronald. We want them to grow up to be brave, moderate, self-reliant and fair, and to avoid miring themselves in vice of any sort. I don't know that I could myself tell a child that Ronald is suffering eternal damnation, but I suppose I can understand why other people might tell such a story.
Comments