Sunset Limited

“Knowledge as destructive to the spirit.” The Sunset Limited is a movie which uses dialogues to express the contrast between knowledge and faith. In the film, knowledge is deemed more important than faith and there is a clear distinction made between the two. The film has also advocate that too much knowledge may make one an atheist.
My opinion is that from the very start, the film has already made a very distinct dichotomy between the two characters one being the black and another being the white. The white is more educated as he is a professor who is an atheist and the black, an ex-convict, who is less educated and a follower of god. In one scene, the Black replied the White that “You might be surprised about how little time I spend trying to understand the world.” this shows the black’s denial of reasoning. This is because Black got his knowledge only from one book but he professor had read a vast number of books but he still was unable to get real comfort. This shows that black believes that having faith aid him in seeking happiness. Despite he has doubt about the stories written in the bible, he chose to act ignorant and still chose to believe in god. He allows faith to play apart on deciding what he wants to do as proven in the film, he “doesn’t make a move without Jesus”. However, White is knowledgeable and is reluctant to base his ideology on something which he thinks is partially a myth. He gave a deeper thought to what the bible is suggesting. He thinks that the bible is supposed to teach people the ‘good’ but instead the bible is teaching them the ‘wrong’ way as a caution not to repeat the mistakes. Thus, implying that there is more than one way to interpret things instead of like black who just accept what he is being taught of.
A clear distinction made is the language that they used. The black tends to use a harsher language e.g. shit, hell, damn etc. and tends to question more. This shows that despite his faith, he is eager to acquire knowledge