Symbolic,Meanings,Of,The,Rose:The Rose

　　Abstract: The rose has different meanings in different cultures. In the movie American Beauty, there’re 13 scenes describing rose. These roses symbolize American culture, and each rose stands for different meanings. Analyzing these symbolic meanings from Semiotics can be of great help to understand American culture.
　　Key words: rose American beauty symbolic meaning
　　中图分类号： I106 文献标识码： A 文章编号：1672-1578（2012)01-0001-02
　　
　　 The first time I see this film title, I guess it is about a beautiful American woman. However it actually is a typical picture of middle-class families in America. Then why? There must be a relationship between the title and the film. After referring to the dictionary, I find out that American beauty is an American variety of rose, periodically bearing large crimson blossoms, whose period is very short. Reading this definition, it is easier to understand what the film is talking about.
　　 All together there are 13 scenes of red rose in this film, each of which is a symbol, but the foremost symbol in my opinion is in the rose itself, I mean the name of the rose American beauty represents itself, --that is the lost of beauty because of the rose’s short period. The beauty here is a broad or general term which includes all the things that appear in the following part of the film, such as the happiness of the family, the sexy girl Angela, the red “1970 Pontiac Firebird” and the photo of the family. The beauty in the world is so short that we can’t catch and keep it, or rather we can say that the duration of beauty is not short at all, but we miss them because of our carelessness and inability. There is too much beauty in the world that we can’t bear all at one time, therefore, we begin to lose beauty. Just as Ricky says “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it... and my heart is going to cave in.” That’s probably the reason why Ricky always takes a DV to film all the things he thinks beautiful. He wants to keep and cherish all the beautiful things, even an ordinary object―a plastic bag, which in his eyes is dancing in the wind. Thus the beauty is to blame for its sin of “too much”. People get lost in too much beauty, then realize the loss and at last cherish the beauty and know what true beauty is. Here is the proof: Lester says at the ending of the film “I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...”. His word is the plot and also the summary of the whole film. At the beginning of the film, Lester loses happiness �“And in a way, I’m dead already.” Furthermore, I think he is psychologically dead. Not only him, but also his wife, when he is watching her carefully handling the roses, he says “She wasn’t always like this. She used to be happy. We used to be happy.” But at last Lester gets salvaged though he is shot dead, for the reason that he recaptures the beauty in life. “False” dead echoes with “real” dead, which is like the old saying �somebody is alive, but he is dead; somebody is dead, but he is alive. The moment Lester is shot is the moment he is reborn. After all, life is like an “American beauty” short but beautiful.
　　 Besides the general symbolized meaning of rose itself, we can see that rose is throughout the whole film. Where there’s a scene of rose, there’s a symbol. At the beginning of the film, Lester’s wife Carolyn Burnham tends her rose bushes in front of the Burnham house. A very well-put together woman of forty, she wears color-coordinated gardening togs and has lots of useful and expensive tools. Lester watches her through a window on the first floor, peeping out through the drapes. His word―“That’s my wife Carolyn. See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? That’s not an accident.” Here the rose means the wife’s expectation and eagerness for love and sex. She and her husband have already lost passion in that. The relationship between them is not harmonious. Another scene, Lester, Carolyn and Jane are eating dinner by candlelight. Red roses are bunched in a vase at the center of the table. Nobody makes eye contact, or even seems aware of anybody else’s presence. Here rose on the dinning table is a symbol of family. To be exactly is the love among the family members, but obviously this family is not that warm. They are indifferent to each other. No one really cares about others’ thought and feeling. Carolyn is in the living room of the sale house, neatly arranging her sales materials on a desk with roses on it and saying that “I will sell this house today.” And she keeps repeating to herself this sentence. She is a middle-aged woman with high requirements for the material life, unsatisfied with his husband as a loser. In my opinion, the rose here is a symbol of desire or want for career. The thick red of the rose expresses the strong feeling of Carolyn, her courage, her self-encouragement. But the fact is that she still can’t sell that house, so she slaps her face hysterically.
　　 At the first sight of seeing Angela, her daughter’s classmate, Lester is suddenly aroused from numbness to reality then in front of his eye, Angela is dancing alone sexily, seemingly to entice him, at the same time, petals of rose fall down and emerge from Angela’s body. In the following section of the film, there are 3 other scenes of sexual imagination of Lester about Angela. Roses then symbols sex. I don’t want to define the implication of rose as love here, because I don’t regard it as love―Angela just stimulates Lester to back to the state of youth. Lester’s lack of beauty in his life makes him missing Angela from time to time. Also there’re 2 scenes in which roses are the decoration in the house and Lester talks to Angela face to face. As we move slowly around a corner, Angela comes into view, standing at the stereo, holding a CD case. She’s been crying; her face is puffy, and her hair mussed. She regards us apprehensively…then puts on a slightly defiant smile.
　　 Now let’s look at this part.
　　 Lester starts unbuttoning Angela’s blouse. She seems disconnected from what’s happening. Lester pulls her blouse open, exposing her breasts. Lester looks down at her, grinning, unable to believe he’s actually about to do what he’s dreamed of so many times, and then...
　　 ANGELA
　　 This is my first time.
　　 Lester laughs.
　　 LESTER
　　 You’re kidding.
　　 ANGELA
　　 (a whisper)
　　 I’m sorry.
　　 A beat. Lester looks down at her, his grin fading.
　　 Angela lies beneath us, embarrassed and vulnerable. This is not the mythically carnal creature of Lester"s fantasies; this is a nervous child.
　　 ANGELA
　　 I still want to do it... I just thought I should tell you... in case you wondered why I wasn’t... better.
　　 Lester’s face falls. There’s no way he’s going to go through with this now.
　　 ANGELA
　　 (confused)
　　 What’s wrong? I thought you said I was beautiful.
　　 LESTER
　　 (tenderly)
　　 You are beautiful.
　　He grabs a blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness.
　　 LESTER
　　 You are so beautiful…and I would be a very lucky man…
　　 He smiles and shakes his head. Humiliated, Angela starts to cry.
　　 ANGELA
　　 I feel so stupid.
　　 LESTER
　　 Don’t.
　　 He hugs her, letting her put her head on his shoulder, stroking her hair and rocking her gently.
　　 ANGELA
　　 I’m sorry.
　　 Lester takes her by the shoulders and looks at her,serious.
　　 LESTER
　　 You have nothing to be sorry about.
　　 This is the turning point of Lester. It is the real moment when Lester gets salvaged. When he says that “You’re beautiful. You are so beautiful. I would be a very lucky man.” His eyes are filled with the love of a father, gratitude, realization and peace. He feels happy not because of the relationship with Angela, but because he again touches the happiness and beauty of life. Roses are beautiful and in Lester’s eyes, Angela is as beautiful and sexy as the rose.
　　 The rose also appears in the scene in which Lester sits on couch, talking with his wife. Outside the door is his new Firebird. As he is trying to remind his wife of their happy past and to have sex with his wife, he is refused by his wife for the reason that he is going to spill beer on couch of 4 thousand dollars upholstered in Italian silk. So the rose is a symbol of both Lester’s returning to youth and Carolyn’s longing for luxury. Rose here is a mixture of hope, desire and sex.
　　 The most classic scenery is the ending of the film. Do you still remember what Lester once said? Each day is the start of your rest of life except one. The day you die. Let’s review the picture: Something at the edge of the counter catches Lester’s eye, and he reaches for…
　　 Close on a framed photograph as he picks it up: It’s the photo we saw earlier of him, Carolyn and Jane, taken several years ago at an amusement park. It’s startling how happy they look.
　　 Lester crosses to the kitchen table, where he sits and studies the photo. He suddenly seems older, more mature... and then he smiles: the deep, satisfied smile of a man who just now understands the punch line of a joke he heard long ago…
　　 LESTER
　　 Man oh man...
　　 (softly)
　　 Man oh man oh man...
　　 After a beat, the barrel of a gun rises up behind his head, aimed at the base of his skull.
　　 Angle on an arrangement of fresh-cut roses in a vase on the opposite counter, deep crimson against the white tile wall. Then a gunshot suddenly rings out, echoing unnaturally. Instantly, the tile is sprayed with blood, the same deep crimson as the roses. I guess the red rose conforms to happiness, blood and death. Lester dies with smile, satisfaction and happiness because the last second minute, in fact, the everlasting moment, before he dies, he sees all the beautiful and memorable things in his life and is proud of them.
　　 Rose represents various things in this film.In short, American beauty is the epitome of life, short but beautiful.
　　
　　References：
　　[1]American Rose Society. The American Rose Annual [M]. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
　　[2] Jacoby Mario. Shame and the Origins of Self-esteem: A Jungian Approach [M]. California: Routledge Press, 1996.
　　[3]罗兰・巴尔特著 李幼蒸译.符号学原理[M].北京：中国人民大学出版社，2008.
　　[4]赵毅衡.文学符号学[M].北京：中国文联出版公司，1990.
　　
　　作者简介：陈晓远，硕士研究生，初级职称，主要研究英语语言学，中西文化对比及翻译。