Donnie Darko vs. Oedipus Rex
Time is a fickle and unpredictable aspect that is extremely subjective in addition to being susceptible to outside forces. In Donnie Darko, the very concept of time is so chaotic and is tampered with constantly which as a repercussion an alternate universe is created, the Tangent Universe. It can be proven that as soon as Donnie left his bedroom in the beginning that his cheating of death affected events that were meant to happen making them go askew. After a series of actions that were brought on by Frank the bunny, he finally learns that it was destined for him to die by the fallen engine. Therefore a predestination paradox was created when Donnie is sent back to October 2nd to wait for his impending demise. In actuality he didn’t disrupt the pattern of events he was only meant to learn from them. In the end, he had a moment of clarity when he watched Gretchen die right in front of his eyes. It was then that he saw a portal to the Primary Universe displaying events that would have happened. In an unconventional and mind bending way, Donnie is then transported back to October 2nd all the way from October 30th to assist in the way that life was meant to play out. Another factor of time would be time travel and this was explained by Roberta Sparrow, Grandma Death in her book The Philosophy of Time Travel. It was more than a coincidence that Frank told Donnie to look out for time traveling portals considering the fact that Dr. Monnitoff, his science teacher was discussing how it was nearly impossible to do so. When dealing with that kind of travel it brings to light other elements that play a part. From a theological standpoint, no one has the power to control future except for a god of whatever denomination that a specific person attributes their spirituality to.
Tragedy can be found within the essence of time. For Donnie he was unable to escape the future events that his death affected. The film can be compared to The Butterfly Effect in the sense that both main protagonists were the root to so much sorrow and despair. Donnie needed to learn in his Tangent that dying would be the only way to save others from their manipulated...
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