Ambiguity In The Film 'The Sound Of Silence'

In the opening scenes of the movie, Dustin Hoffman plays the starring role as “The Graduate” Benjamin Braddock Benjamin is on an airplane landing in Los Angles as he arrives background music plays “The Sound of Silence”, and begins with the line, “Hello darkness, my old friend” plays. The main motifs of this movie seem to play on rebellion against authority; alienation and isolation; sexually dominance, and the loss of one’s innocence.
Often a young man, although educated, possibly will perhaps lack some of the experience to have true wisdom. Ambiguity traps us in the opening scenes as uncertainty of why we are looking at the fresh young graduate still unsure of his footing. Our young graduate is alone among all the other passengers, but in
Robinson, pretending she’s looking for the bathroom. Mrs. Robinson an experienced, luring, sexually aggressive sultriness is just what a 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock wills for. Mrs. Robinson is seen numerous times with clothes of animal designs, or designs suggestive of leopards, giraffes, or a zebra, these animalistic undertones tells the viewer that Mrs. Robinson is dangerous, fierce, wild, and it also carries other risqué sexual connotations. Nevertheless it certainly can play-into a young lad’s aggressive animalistic behavior being played out before your eyes. She manipulates him into driving her home, and in spite of her intentions, the sexual trap she’s luring him into will ultimately, and sarcastically will led him to discover his own
Robinson Surely, in today’s culture of moral revolution, all this will seem pretty commonplace to someone my age, but to think this movie was released in the late sixties. Perhaps the reason that “The Graduate” resonated with audiences is because social unrest lay beneath the squeaky clean suburban lifestyle.
The generation gap exploded by the late 60’s, the youth felt misunderstood by the older generation.
Benjamin wore a lot of black and white toward the beginning of the movie. This helped convey to the audience that he fit into the world of his mother and father, and his situation with Mrs. Robinson. The liaison is encased in his parent’s world which explains why the relationship with Mrs. Robinson is meaningless to Benjamin. The Graduate showed sex as destructive and love as constructive, because Benjamin’s attitude completely changes once he starts dating Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine. When he falls in love with Elaine and starts to break free from Mrs. Robinson and his parent’s world, he wears clothing with warmer tones. The filmmakers also told the audience about Mrs. Robinson’s character from her clothing by dressing her in various animal