decided on the duo because “they sounded to me like the voice of Benjamin. Full of feeling and not very articulate.” 303 Silence also plays a big part in the film as there is an “impossibility of real spoken communication” between the opposing generations. 304 As demonstrated when Mrs. Robinson says “I don’t think we have much to say to each other” the older and younger generations spoke entirely different languages and by retreating into silence, Ben is able to escape his parents’ scrutiny. The absence of sound references the influential leaders who had been ‘silenced’ in the decade. The 1960s witnesses the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcom X, triggering national mourning and an overwhelming feeling that hope for a brighter future had been lost. 305 In the final scene, Ben and Elaine have finally escaped to a place where they can express themselves and yet they sit in silence. Suddenly they are overwhelmed by the enormity of their actions and the uncertainty which awaits them. While some have tried to view The Graduate as a commentary on the cultural issues of Vietnam and student protest, others see Nichols’ work as an observation of the growing ‘generational gap’ and consumerism which the 1960s witnessed. Whitehead saw the film as “a focus on individual freedom versus collective repression” 306 and argued that it was widely misinterpreted as a political commentary when it was in fact a satire of the materialistic society. 307 Aaron Cooley also asserts that the film is an assessment of the
303 Joseph Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar (London: Doubleday, 1970), 285.
304 Stevens, Mike Nichols, 92. 305 Stevens, Mike Nichols, 87. 306 Whitehead, Appraising the Graduate , 39. 307 Ibid. , 3.
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