Eric Lampe

2/20/07

Morality

                                                            Braveheart

            In the movie “Braveheart” we see numerous instances where people have battles within themselves to try and do what they know is right and what could bring them personal gain. In this movie the conflict is portrayed externally via a torture, fights and a full scale war which can lead us to see the internal conflict that the main characters face.

            The English were in control of Scotland at the time and the King of England, Edward the Longshanks, was a brutal ruler who oppressed raped and murdered the Scots for years. It is a story of William Wallace, whose family had been killed by the English, fighting for his wife and for the other common men in his country. His wife’s throat was slit after the noble Englishmen of the town found out she was secretly married. It was the noble’s right to sleep with the new wife on the night of a wedding. William Wallace has a choice to make. He could move on and live peacefully or he could revolt, fight, and possibly face death. He decides to fight with passion for his wife and the injustice that has been occurring for years. After successfully killing the band of English soldiers in their village he has another choice to make. Should he settle with his revenge or go on to take on the most powerful country in the world and fight for others who have faced hardships and done nothing about it? William Wallace has lived in legend because he faced choices and took the ones that seemed impossible. As a Christian it is a big dilemma because to live by Christ means never harming another person but yet it is also taking care of others. Wallace certainly loved his country and the people with no power, he fought to the death for them. However Wallace, being a Christian, should love even his enemies. Should the English soldiers, who were following the orders of a brutal king, have been killed? These are hard moral dilemmas.

            William Wallace had difficult choices to make within himself and externally as well. It was because of the internal choices that he made that inspired what he did externally. A line that is repeated time and time again throughout the movie is that a real soldier fights with his mind and then with his hands. In other words you have to know what you’re fighting for, why you’re fighting for it, and that will determine what you should do. This is something we can really learn from. Maybe we don’t have to physically take on a nation every day but we make choices all the time and a lot of times we do not think about them. If we thought more about what our actions were I think we would become better people.

            Robert the Bruce, one of the Scottish nobles, also has moral conflicts within himself that are shown in the movie. The nobles have been known for doing nothing and just doing whatever the English want them too because the English offer them land incentives. The people of Scotland are in such bad shape because of the noble’s greed. The movie highlights the struggle of one of these nobles, Robert the Bruce. He is a good man at heart and is inspired by the passion that William Wallace fights with. However, with pressure from his father he betrays Wallace. This is a huge deal because with Wallace’s growing band of rebels they could gain freedom if they had the support of the nobles and that is why Robert the Bruce’s struggle is so hard. He wants to help his people out but there is a also a selfish part that wants to gain personal power as well. This just highlights a struggle we all face every day. It is a struggle that defines the challenge of what it means to be Christian. Do we risk ourselves for others or do we act out of personal gain?

            Looking at “Braveheart” we see that entertaining films have something more to them than epic battles and dramatic love stories. It is essentially the human condition that we all face. Do we go for personal gain or to help others? We see Wallace pouring his entire self out for others and ends up being tortured to death. His last words are a bone chilling yell of “freedom.” He is dieing a painful death but he knows what he is doing is inspiring others and eventually led to the freedom of Scotland. Robert the Bruce who struggle much more than Wallace internally at first went down the path of personal gain and betrayal but we see later on in the film that he wanted nothing of the sort and that he worked to try and bring the nobles and common men together. In this film I would see William Wallace as a Christ like figure who we strive to be and give our everything for others and Robert the Bruce as a figure that represents the struggle that all of us face and that we are not perfect and we screw up but we need to work to keep giving up our whole selves for the welfare of others.