She shows why courage is important and how courage can impact a large number of people.
In the action/thriller/dark comedy Kill Bill, the protagonist called simply The Bride exhibits courage of a different sort. Although The Bride does demonstrate moral as well as physical courage due to her sense of righteousness regarding her ex-boyfriend, The Bride emerges as a purely physical hero. The Bride undertakes physical challenges that Tarantino portrays with his characteristic hyperbole. Because of Tarantino's rendering of pure, exaggerated physical courage, viewers can appreciate the impact of physical courage on their worlds. For example, The Bride takes on a whole fleet of enemies in one scene and still triumphs. Though she might have flinched inside, The Bride never wavered on the outside. Her courage was purely physical, and the blood split throughout Kill Bill proves it. The Bride also endured a tremendous amount of pain during her Taoist-style training; those who are courageous inevitably must feel pain. In fact, the hallmark of any type of courage, physical or moral, is the willingness to endure pain. In Brockovich's case, the pain was mental and emotional; in The Bride's case is was physical but psychic as well. Were it not for her rigorous traditional training sessions, The Bride would not have had the courage to take on a whole army of enemies as she did throughout the film. Her physical endurance during the training sessions enabled her to endure the remarkable amounts of pain she encountered through her battles. Kill Bill illustrates how physical and mental courage converge to...
The Bride's rewards were not fully realized until the sequel to Tarantino's movie, when the protagonist confronts Bill and reunites with her child.
Courage is a key component of a rich human existence. Both moral and physical courage are essential in propelling a person through pain, through a mundane and insular existence into one that is personally and socially meaningful. Even movies and other forms of fiction can illustrate for human beings the meaning, power, and importance of courage. Courage helps to define a person, or a character: Erin Brockovich was defined by her moral courage and The Bride was defined by her physical courage. Their examples permeate modern human consciousness because most people do not need as much courage as those characters did in their daily lives. Unfortunately, many people take for granted the relative ease of modern life. Living from day-to-day without having to exert physically, a person only demonstrates physical courage in the gym or moral courage when asking a person out on a date. However, films like Erin Brockovich and Kill Bill show how courage can take a person beyond the confines of their small world. Courage can make a person transform, grow, and change themselves and the world around them.
References
Erin Brockovich." Retrieved at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195685/
Kill Bill: Vol. 1." Retrieved at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266697/
Soderbergh, Steven. (2000). Feature Film Erin Brockovich.
Tarantino, Quentin. (2003). Feature Film Kill Bill: Vol. 1.
