Characters In A Few Good Men

Superior Essays
[10/19/15, 10:38:34 PM] Samantha Kaplan: Have you ever noticed a leader who exaggerates his or her self importance? In the play, “A Few Good Men,” by Aaron Sorkin, Colonel Jessep frames Pfc. Downey and Cpl. Dawson for committing the murder of Pfc. Santiago during 1986. These men are part of the United States Marines Corps in Guantanamo, Cuba. As part of the marines, the men are supposed to live by the marine code of defending their unit, God, corps, and country. Living by the marine code also means being honorable. In the play, Colonel Jessep’s morals and sense of honor are tested when he secretly orders a disciplinary action, called a code red, to Pfc. Santiago that accidently results in his death. Dawson and Downey were the marines …show more content…
Jessep is immoral because he lets Dawson and Downey take the blame for Santiago’s death. When Doctor Stone examines Santiago’s body, soon after he is found, to investigate the cause of death, Jessep manipulates him into believing that Dawson and Downey probably killed him even though there is not proper evidence to support this claim. Doctor Stone thinks that Santiago could have died from a heart condition. Jessep, however, convinces Stone that he would have noticed symptoms previously if he had heart condition. Therefore, to cover up the fact that he ordered the code red, Jessep tells Stone, “Hey, hey, Walter, you tell me. What can happen to a doctor’s career because of something like this? You know what I think happened? I don’t think it was a Code Red. I think Dawson and Downey got it into their heads to kill Santiago. I think, like you said, I think they put poison on the rag. (72)” Since Jessep is colonel, he thinks that the marines will have a worse loss if they lose him to prison as opposed to if Dawson and Downey were sent away. Jessep is willing to let Dawson and Downey go to prison for years and ruin their careers because he does not want the responsibility for Santiago’s death. Jessep acts selfish and immoral because his big ego causes him to think that he is more important than Dawson and Downey. Jessep thinks that he is saving many lives by ordering the code red, meanwhile his main concern is covering it up to save only his life. Jessep also does not act like an honorable marine because he chooses to give Santiago a code red to teach him a lesson, even while noticing that Santiago is weaker in physical condition which prevents him from working as well as others. If Jessep wanted to be honorable and care for his fellow marine, he could have helped Santiago or transferred him to another base

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Santiago is killed in the middle of the night by being tied up and his mouth taped with a rag shoved in his mouth to keep him quiet. This is called a “code red” that is issued by Col. Nathan R. Jessup the marine in charge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He issued Pfc. Louden Downey and Lance Cpl. Harold W Dawson to teach Santiago a lesson.…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Effects of Impulse and Recklessness Decisions and actions are the pathways that lead to a change in the way of someone's life. The authors of "The Most Dangerous Game," "A Worn Path," and "The Truth About Being a Hero," Richard Connell, Eudora Welty, and Karl Marlantes, demonstrate how certain decisions and actions change one's life through their works. In addition, the following question is answered throughout each of their works: what is at the end of each pathway that those decisions and actions lead to? Considering their passages, specific pathways often lead someone towards a certain state of mind or situation in life - especially due to impluse and recklessness. Giving in to impulse and recklessness causes a change in character,…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Great Twitch and Cass Mastern In All The King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren tells the story of Willie Stark, Governor of a an unnamed state in the south during the mid 1900s. The story is narrated by Jack Burden, a man that was employed by Stark to do miscellaneous tasks. Throughout the novel Burden does not have a sense of responsibility for his actions and fails to realize the actions will have future consequences. Chapter four in the novel focuses on Cass Mastern, the topic of Burden’s dissention paper that he abandoned.…

    • 1285 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    His first command as an officer begins with the men in the Third Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan. He is told that the marines are in a strictly defensive operation. They stare at maps, patrol the borders of the military base, go on the occasional patrol outside the base, and dig trenches and pile sandbags up to protect the base. As the months go on, the attacks and contact with the Viet Cong increase and become more and more violent. He is finally seeing the action he had hoped.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sartwell describes these four as being: deference to authority, response to social consensus, willingness to respond to people as members of groups, and to expect groups, overall, to display certain qualities, and a desire for your own security and that of your family and friends, to the extent you are willing to make moral compromises to preserve it (Sartwell 118). Both Dawson and Downey blindly follow the corrupt orders given by Col. Jessup, which led to the death of Private First Class William Santiago. All four of Sartwell's circumstances can explain why Dawson and Downey fail to follow their moral guidelines. In the military you must respect and honor your superiors, other people were urging them to act in a certain way, Dawson and Downey both knew that Santiago was weaker, and they live in a place where one must wear camouflage or risk being shot. Along with this, Ron Ashkenas of Harvard Business review tell the real life dangers of blind obedience and deference to authority in his article "The Dangers of Deference."…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” decide whether the Grandmother or the Misfit is good and defend your answer with an example or two from the story. The Misfit was a complicated character, but he was good deep within his soul. He was wrongly accused of the crime of killing his father, although his father died from complications from the flu. Ultimately, the Misfit spent time in prison which gave birth to bitterness and made him question what was right and wrong.…

    • 1899 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to Rob Powers, a US Military Expert and author of To Obey or Not to Obey Military Orders, “an order that is unlawful does not need to be obeyed,” because the obedience of that order can result in criminal prosecution of those who carried it out, not those who ordered it (Powers). Although members of the military are taught to obey immediately without question, they have the power to willfully disobey if the order is illegal. Perhaps refuting Fromm and agreeing with Milgram, Powers may claim that Dawson and Downey had a choice to disobey Colonel Jessup’s order, asserting that they are accountable for their actions. Dawson saw Colonel Jessup as a role model, a reason to follow the order, not wanting to disappoint him. Likewise, Downey saw Dawson as a role model, someone he looked up to and had for protection.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Robert D Shadley is a retired major general of the US Army. Nearly twenty years ago, he served as a ranking agent in Aberdeen proving ground (an army training facility in Maryland-Harford County). His book The GAMe: Unraveling a Sex Scandal in The Military is a clear demonstration of Shadley’s facility for morality and justice as well as the love of justice. In this 360-pages-long work published by Beaver 's Pond Press, Shadley exposes mischievous acts of sexual assault that pervaded the military, particularly at his station. These ignominious events followed hot on the heels of another sexual assault incidence in the navy, which was known as the Tailhook scandal.…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Dick Couch writes a thought-provoking book, A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace, which details a growing problem in the United States military, i.e. maintaining ethical and moral behavior on and off-duty. His supporting arguments are society emphasizes behavior not conducive to promoting positive ethical behavior, malignant personalities in the ranks spreading negative behavior, and the ambiguity of the asymmetric warfare fought today. He provides anecdotal evidence supporting the US military’s methodology to combat these trends. However, his true strength lies in the combat stories of ethical dilemmas related to him through soldiers serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and advice given for junior officers and…

    • 1639 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Honor Definition Essay

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Honor Everyone has their own personalised definition of honor. It's seen as a rank on a certain subject, keeping your image or fulfilling what an individual was bound to do, or could be seen as a privilege. I define honor as having pride in who you are and what you do, being honest and noble, constantly doing selfless acts while putting others before yourself. Today’s modern dictionary definition of honor is to have high respect or esteem (Dictionary.com), but the way in which we define honor as a whole, has changed over time.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Analysis Of A Few Good Men

    • 1572 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Their study follows even more so through the court case and contesting perspectives that differentiate the military from society (Kelman and Hamilton 136). With analysis applied to the lens of A Few Good Men, implications lead one to understand that the use of intimidation and loyalty contribute most prevalently to the authorization and eventual dehumanization present in Rob Reiner’s film and the actions taken by such characters. Although less saturated in A Few Good Men, the depiction of Lt. Col. Matthew Markinson’s respect to his “chain-of-command” is effectively presented by Kelman and Hamilton more so than Zimbardo’s passive interpretation; nonetheless, both considerably explain the use of intimidation to rationalize Markinson’s initiative to follow his commanding officer’s orders. Kelman and Hamilton’s study of similar court cases find themselves dissecting the rationale behind intimidation.…

    • 1572 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Characters of A Good Man is Hard to Find “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is a famous example of short stories in American literature. The story was written by Flannery O’Connor in 1955. Flannery O’Connor was actually born Mary Flannery O’Connor in 1925. She was considered an important person in American literature, with credits for writing two novels, over 30 short stories and various reviews and commentaries on other written works. O’Connor was raised in the Bible belt and the influence of the area shows within her works.…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A major theme of Flannery O 'Connor 's “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is what makes a person good. There is no clear answer, neither in the text nor in life. It is safe to say that a good person can be defined as one that is honest, kind, and always tries to do what is right. It is ironic then, maybe even a bit hypocritical, that the Grandmother is one of the most immoral characters in the story and yet she spends much of her time talking about what makes people good, judging others based on little to no information about them, and trying to convince the Misfit, a serial killer that just murdered her family, of his own goodness.…

    • 1352 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Platoon Film Analysis

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Vietnam War was a devastating war for both America and Vietnam. The Vietnam war was between Northern and Southern Vietnam due to the communist government in Northern Vietnam. The United States began the war simply sending aid to Southern Vietnam, but soon got much more involved. Many Americans opposed America’s involvement at all because they were not directly involved in the war, causing citizens and soldier to be unsure of their reason for fighting and not aware of the actual struggles and difficulties that came along with war. In the movie Platoon, directed by Vietnam War veteran Oliver Stone, the main character Chris Taylor, is a soldier in the Vietnam War and his experience symbolize the real experiences of a soldier in the Vietnam…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Few Good Men Essay

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages

    I purchased and watched the movie “A Few Good Men” on amazon.com. The main character is Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee. In the movie, he is defending Private Downey and Corporal Dawson. He is assisted by Lieutenant Joanne Galloway and Lieutenant Sam Weinberg.…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays