Saving Private Ryan

Motifs-
Light and Dark- This is shown in the the movie by the choices that some soldiers make on like if they are going to kill a person or not. There is a right time and a wrong time. Like when the captured the German soldiers and then shot them anyway.
Noise and Silence- The noise would be the war and how they acted when they where fighting. The silence would be when they are resting and trying to forget what they just did or what just happened.
Clean and Dirty- Maybe this is how they fight. There aren't really any rules when you are fighting but there are when you have captured an enemy. And maybe the corporal did the right thing in letting that German go.
Youth and Maturity- The corporal grows throughout this movie however he does not grow enough. He kind of gets accepted at the end right before the big fight.

Symbols-
The Dead Soldier- Specifically Wade is the dead soldier that I'm going to talk about. He symbolized the Captions decisions and how they can effect other people and how his life was traded in for the lives of 10 or maybe 20 times as many.
The Flag- The flag represented what the soldiers where fighting for and maybe the beginning and the end of the war.
Cap. Hand- The captions hand represented how people change in time of war. He was a school teacher back home, and now he is a killing machine. His hand shakes because it is such a dramatic change and he is having emotional issues. But when he dies, he kind of goes home and his hand stops shaking.
Themes-
Courage- Courage is a good theme for this movie. You need to have courage in times of war. The soldiers had courage most of the time and when they didn't it cost them.
Manhood- This is shown in the movie by how the men mature and become men in the war. The caption was a school teacher and the war made him a man. Same with the corporal, he was a kid and the war made him mature and become a man.
Self-preservation- This is show in the movie by how the men try to do everything in there power to keep themselves alive. The men don't want to go and fight to get that hill and they say that they don't feel the best about it but they would rather not risk their lives.
Disregard for human life- This is shown many times in the movie. But the part that stuck out the most was after they had taken Panama beach some of the men captured two soldiers and shot them any way and laughed about it.