Being There

Jerzy Kosinski’s beautiful novel “Being There” was made into the movie, directed by Hal Ashby and starring Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine. Here, Jerzy Kosinski, writer of the novel is also the writer of the screenplay for the movie. After watching the movie and reading the novel, it seems that Peter Sellers selection for the film version was a perfect choice as he has shown a perfect visual experience compared to the original novel. “Being There”, both the movie and the fiction are based on the misunderstanding among the characters and talks about the realism of the world that we as humans are often fooled by our own preconceptions and expectations.
    “Being There” by Jerzy Kosinski is a book about Chance the gardener who has no knowledge of the real world and from nowhere, he becomes the main policy advisor to the President and later a nominee for the presidential candidate. The book is written with less than hundred and forty pages and divided into seven chapters written in a style which is easy to understand. The whole novel is told by a non-participant narrator (third person) as the setting, characters, point of view is presented without the interference of the narrator. The author uses an indirect characterization as he develops the personality of the characters by the character’s thoughts, words, actions and comments from other characters. Also, the characters in the fiction are flat as they are static, one-dimensional, symbolic characters. For example, throughout the book, chance the main character is only interested in watching T.V. and knows nothing about the real world. Throughout the book and the film, Kosinski uses an integral setting where theme and characters are influenced by both time and place.
    Kosinski in his book “Being There” talks about realism and unrealism at the same time. For example, when he talks about Chance who has never went out of his house and also only watches T.V. and work in the garden, it seems very unrealistic....