Analyzing "The Matrix"

The Matrix is a film in which the very technology has imprisoned our minds in a virtual reality in order to use our bodies as an energy source. When given the choice to remain in the virtual world or to learn the truth, Neo chooses the truth. This film is incredibly powerful because it reveals so much about human nature. The character Cypher shows how we are so desperate to cling to what is comfortable that we will sacrifice the truth—and even people—in order to remain oblivious to the pains of reality. Morpheus and the resistance are crying out for the kingdom; they want to free those trapped in the Matrix (the empire) and allow them to live their lives where there is freewill: reality (the kingdom). The Matrix encourages me to hope for a world in which we awake and realize that we are focusing on trivial wants and that we need to act in ways that benefit the world rather than attend to individual desires.

In the film, the origin of sin and evil is acceptance. Everyone in the Matrix accepts what is before them as true without questioning the world around them; this is why they cannot see that there is something beyond the “reality” in which they live. When Neo begins questioning what is real, redemption begins. Neo stops accepting everything before him as true just because “that’s the way things are” and begins looking deeper into the world around him. Our ability to question and interpret the world around us is what makes us more like God than any of His other creations. Neo’s desire for the truth redeems civilization from the sin blinded acceptance.

 Which is better, to know the truth, but suffer because of it, or to live a lie, but be content?

      

            When Neo fails to jump from building to building, he falls and injures himself. He did not think that he could get hurt because it was not real, to which Morpheus replies “Your mind makes it real”. Do you think that some things are only real because we believe they are real in our minds?