A Study of Human Nature in Film The Descent

DOI

10.2991/icassee-19.2019.135How to use a DOI?

Keywords

The Descent; evil; human nature; paradox

Abstract

The Descent is known as a horror movie. It is about six friends who make a descent into a deep cave. But a collapse traps them in it. With limited food supply, they struggled to survive each other and some unknown blood thirst creatures. Through this film, the director Neil Marshall reveals the dark side of human nature. The wild cave, the predators and the darkness are symbolic of the evil of human nature. Juno led the other five explorers to their doom, because the sin and fear is not from the outside but in their inner heart. Early in Romanticism, man is optimistic about human nature while modern irrationality, comparatively speaking, is more pessimistic towards human nature. According to Kant, man's first choice intends to be evil, because once man chooses evil, he gets self-knowledge through this fall. It is a paradox of human nature. Through revealing of human evil nature, this film made people realize that human beings are no longer the master of his fortune. Man should be aware of the evil side in human nature and in awe of nature and the unknown power. Although human nature is an evil tendency upon free will, it is an indispensable force for man to grow from innocence to maturity.

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xiaoying Zhang
PY  - 2019/11
DA  - 2019/11
TI  - A Study of Human Nature in Film The Descent
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 639
EP  - 641
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icassee-19.2019.135
DO  - 10.2991/icassee-19.2019.135
ID  - Zhang2019/11
ER  -