Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day


The movie I chose to analyze is Groundhog Day. In this movie, Phil is a frustrated weather man who is sent to cover the famous Groundhog Day festival in Punxsutawney,Pennsylvania with Larry (his camera man), and Rita (his producer). At the end of the day, he is eager to return back home, but to his misfortune, a snowstorm forces all three of them to stay in the boring town.When Phil wakes up the next morning, and the following at 6:00a.m., he is experiencing the festival all over again. He passes through all sorts of events, realizes that the consequences of hisactions never matter since he will wake up the next day and no one would remember the previous day. In the end, he notices that by doing the right thing, he will finally return home. The main message of themovie is to show both how mean and kind humans can be when there is no one controlling their actions.


The two philosophical theories represented in the movie are Plato’s Ring of Gyges andEpicureanism. The Ring of Gyges narrates the story of Gyges, a shepherd of Lydia. One day after an earthquake, a cave appeared next to the mountains. Gyges goes there and finds out that the cave wasactually a tomb. In there, he found a bronze horse containing a corpse who wore a golden ring. He tried it on and found out it had the power to make him invisible. Then, he goes in the castle, seduces thequeen, kills the king, and becomes the new king of Lydia. This story shows us what human beings can do when there is free will and no justice to control society. A human would take advantage of thesituation; do all sorts of things to get what they want. Epicureanism is a philosophy created by Epicurus which states that humans should get the most amount of pleasure possible in one’s lifetime. Bypleasure, Epicurus means food, sex, drinking, gambling, and many other satisfying activities.


In the movie we can see many examples that make allusion to the Ring of Gyges. First, we see...