M.Night Shyamalan’s "the Village"

Are you really free if you live in a society controlled by fear? In The Village, M. Night Shyamalan illustrates a small society of people who are protected and free through the fear that they have because of ignorance.

The village is a small group of people who have isolated themselves from society out of fear; fear of the evil of this world. Only the elders of the village know the truth, everyone else is captured by the fear that the surrounding woods are filled with violent creatures. While the actual world is set in the twenty-first century, the people in the village live as if it were the 1800s. They do not use money, because money is the root of evil. Each of the elders had a loved one who had been killed because of money and greed. Together they started “the village” in an attempt to evade evil.

Obviously they had to have some way of keeping everyone inside the village. The only way their plan could work was to totally isolate themselves. To do this a false fear of Those We Do Not Speak Of was instigated within the hearts and minds of the youngsters. Supposedly the forbidden woods which surrounded the valley in which the people dwelt were inhabited by mysterious and dangerous creatures. The society free from fear was in itself sustained