Essay Questions

Is John a coward?

The short answer to this question is a resounding yes. His family are all very frightened of the impending catastrophe; he tries to brush of Claire's fears by telling her that the scientists are right, and that the harbingers of doom are just trying to get famous but he has already told his son that doomsday is coming and that there will be nowhere for them to hide. Instead of staying close to his little boy, calming him, being the rock that he needs his father to be, he steals the pills that Claire has been saving for the entire family to commit suicide before the world ends, and takes them all, killing himself and leaving his wife to take care of their son her sister and her parents. This is extraordinarily cowardly.

In what way does Justine reflect the movie as a whole?

Justine is in a state of deep melancholy. She cannot seem to shake herself out of it and although she has never been exactly happy, she has never been in this condition before. She is almost catatonic after the wedding reception and everything seems like the world is ending to her. In a way, her emotional world is ending and mirroring what is going on in the world as a whole. Justine takes a fatalistic view of what is happening. She believes Earth to be a place filled with ugliness and evil and so is not particularly sad to see it ending. She doesn't feel fear as the catastrophe ensues because it brings about an end to her life too, something which seems to Justine to be a positive thing. The world is ending for Justine before it ends for everyone else.