Snowpiercer Essay Questions

What is the significance of Curtis sacrificing his arm to save the child at the end of the film?

Curtis is offered the position of engineer by Wilford. He is given the chance to step into the lap of luxury and take over as its corrupt leader, but instead he rejects the position and sticks his arm into the gears of the train to get the child out from beneath the floor. Throughout the film, Curtis has felt guilty that he hasn't sacrificed more for his fellow passengers, and here, when he is offered the chance to ascend to a throne, he rejects the opportunity in order to make the ultimate sacrifice and help to overturn the whole system of governance.

What is the significance of Namgoong's use of the hallucinogen as an explosive device?

Namgoong begins to help Curtis and the group revolting against the higher class passengers on the train, but he needs a hallucinogen in order to maintain clarity and do his work. The fact that he uses this same drug to create an explosive to blow a hole in the train is significant because, by doing so, he is choosing to sacrifice the one thing that gives him ease and makes things more comfortable for him in order to serve the greater good. Like Curtis, he wants to help overturn the order that is in power on the train and create a new life for the passengers.

Why does Wilford allow the people in the tail of the train to remain impoverished?

Wilford purposely allows the people in the tail of the train to remain without solid food or suitable living conditions in order that they will continue to have children who can work in the engine, but also have a lower life expectancy and live more chaotic existences in order to balance the number of people on the train. By lowering the quality of life for his passengers, he ensures that a kind of continuous genocide is always taking place in the "ecosystem" of the train.

What two horrible things does Curtis learn in Wilford's car?

First, Curtis learns that Gilliam, his mentor from the tail car, was working with Wilford all along, and that it was all part of their plan for Curtis to lead a revolution up to the water supply. Curtis always looked up to Gilliam as a kind of father figure, so it is earth-shattering for him to learn that Gilliam was aligned with the enemy the entire time. Secondly, he learns that the children taken from the tail car are used as child labor, their small size helping them to crawl into tiny parts of the engine and help keep it running. Both of these pieces of information shock Curtis and lead him to fight back even harder against Wilford.

How might one interpret the ending?

The ending of the film is left somewhat ambiguous. Instead of keep things running on the train, Curtis creates even more chaos when he causes the engine to give out and crashes the train. His anarchic impulse leads to large-scale destruction, but from the wreckage of the train, Yona and Timmy emerge in furry coats and boots, in search of a habitable shelter in the wider world. As the world begins to thaw, humans are able to live freely off the land again. Yona and Timmy see a polar bear, which signifies that there is life on earth, even though the passengers on the train had previously believed the world was uninhabitable.