A Few Good Men Literary Elements

A Few Good Men Literary Elements

Director

Rob Reiner

Leading Actors/Actresses

Tom Cruise and Demi Moore

Supporting Actors/Actresses

Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, and Kevin Pollak

Genre

Legal Drama

Language

English

Awards

Nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing.

Date of Release

December 11th, 1992

Producer

Rob Reiner, David Brown, and Andrew Scheinman

Setting and Context

Summer 1986: Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba and Washington D.C.

Narrator and Point of View

Told from a third person point of view

Tone and Mood

Self-Righteous, Energetic, Solemn, Violent, Sad, Mysterious, and Angry

Protagonist and Antagonist

Lt. Kaffee (Protagonist) vs. Colonel Jessup (Antagonist)

Major Conflict

Lt. Kaffee's struggle to get to truth of the "Code Red" and discover who killed Private Santiago

Climax

When Jessup yells "You Can't Handle the Truth" to Lt. Kaffee

Foreshadowing

Dawson and Downey's dishonorable discharge is foreshadowed throughout the film.

Understatement

Towards the start of the film, the extent to which Colonel Jessup is unhinged is understated tremendously.

Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques

N/A

Allusions

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's play of the same name, Lost Horizon, Citizen Kane, Song of the South, 12 Angry Men, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Quicksilver, The Verdict, To Kill a Mockingbird (both the film and book), Anatomy of a Murder, geography, and popular culture.

Paradox

Jessup is a high-ranking officer, yet acts in a way becoming of a low-level enlisted man.

Parallelism

N/A

Update this section!

You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section.

Update this section

After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editor will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.

Cite this page