Hollywood Time-Bomb

We've reached the point and time in the semester where we are learning about character analysis.  Below I write about Marilyn Monroe.  She has a lot of character to write about, but where do you start? We know where it ends...

On the surface, Marilyn Monroe was always the picture of glamor, but whatever went on inside the famous Hollywood actress will always remain a mystery.  As a child, Marilyn grew up without a stable family.  She didn’t know who her father was.  Her mother had been committed to a mental hospital. Until she was sixteen,  Marilyn bounced from one orphanage to another.  She dreamed of being loved, but she didn’t really know what love was. Consequently, at age 16, Marilyn entered an arranged marriage with a neighbor just to be free of another orphanage and another foster family.  The falseness of this relationship may have affected her relationships with men for the rest of her life. She could never maintain a love relationship for any length of time.  As she got older, she must have become so desperate and lonely.  She wanted to be loved so badly, but she didn’t know if she could ever trust a man.  The high point of her life may have come when she transitioned from Norma Jeane to Marilyn. This came after she divorced her first husband.  She learned a path to becoming an independent woman through modeling and acting. She decided she could make her own decisions in life.  Marilyn wanted to be a star, but in a way people would regard her as a serious artist. To reach her dreams, she worked hard at every component of the job. She was willing to do whatever it took to make it happen.  As a result, Marilyn’s greatest strength may have been her willingness to sacrifice.  She left all three of her marriages because her husbands’ controlling behavior.  Along the way, she gave up security for her art.  This separated her from all the other beautiful Hollywood starlets.   Marilyn was often referred to as “The Blonde Bombshell.” This metaphor may have expressed Marilyn’s impact on her public.  However, it may have explained Marilyn’s nature.  She knew of her family’s history of mental illness.  It may have been just a matter of time before she herself would explode.

Bonnie Was a Dreamer

Bonnie Parker looks beautiful on screen when she is portrayed by Faye Dunaway in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. For me, her real beauty came in her ability to dream. She lived a life of absolute poverty during the years of the Great Depression.  When she met Clyde, she knew what she had  to do.  She had dreamt  of the opportunity to escape nearly all life.  Below is my character analysis for my Film History Research Project in English 110.



Bonnie Parker was a dreamer. Growing up in Texas – this is the early 20^th Century – she was a bright and ambitious student.  In her English classes, she showed a keen interest in poetry and literature.   She dreamt of on day becoming an actress,  but life got in the way.  She became involved with violent men.  Whatever she held dearly in her heart gradually hardened.  At age 15 she married a violent and abusive man.  His name was Roy Thorton, and he was sent to jail for armed robbery.  She never saw him again.  Although you would think she would have learned her lesson, she fell deeply in love with young Clyde Barrow.  Together they formed a gang and began a two-year long crime spree.  This was the 1930s – The Great Depression.  It was hard times.  When they met, the lived in poverty.  When they died, they had become celebrated bank robbers. As Bonnie and Clyde believed in living every moment of their lives to the fullest, it is only fitting that their deaths were truly spectacular.  After two and a half year crime spree in which the couple terrorized five states, and embarrassed, taunted, and eluded all law enforcement that pursued them, a group of Texas Rangers finally caught up with the gang hiding out in Louisiana.  An ambush was organized and carried out.  Bonnie and Clyde died in a violent onslaught of bullets.  They didn’t stand a chance.