Cool Hand Luke Literary Elements

Cool Hand Luke Literary Elements

Director

Stuart Rosenberg

Leading Actors/Actresses

Paul Newman

Supporting Actors/Actresses

George Kennedy, Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet

Genre

Crime, Drama

Language

English

Awards

Won Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - George Kennedy

Date of Release

1967

Producer

Gordon Carroll

Setting and Context

Florida 1950s

Narrator and Point of View

POV is that of Luke

Tone and Mood

Serious, Dramatic

Protagonist and Antagonist

Protagonist is Luke. Antagonists are the Captain and all of his Bosses at the prison.

Major Conflict

Luke continues to run away after finding out his mother has died, and won't stop.

Climax

Luke is shot in the neck at a church after running away and is taken by the Captain to the prison hospital an hour away so that he will bleed out and die on the way there.

Foreshadowing

Luke in The Man With No Eyes' sunglasses foreshadows him being shot by the prison boss.

Understatement

It's understated that Dragline's character represents Judas Iscariot.

Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques

n/a

Allusions

The film is an allusion to Jesus' death on the cross in order to set the world free from sin.

Paradox

It is a prison for heavy offenders yet Luke is sentenced with them for cutting off parking meter heads.

Parallelism

Luke's smiling in the face of authority taking him in is paralleled from the first scene into the last.

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