Success of Virtue

Success of Virtue

In the 1957 film “The Bridge on River Kwai” the character of Colonel Nicholson succeeds in demonstrating virtue by leading British soldiers in building the bridge and demonstrating resiliency and hard work of the British soldiers. The film depicts the life of British prisoners of war captured by the Japanese and forced to work on a railway being built by the Japanese. As they are building the railway Colonel Nicholson realizes that the site chosen for building the bridge is not the best. Furthermore, the design of the bridge chosen by the Japanese is not the strongest. As a result, Colonel Nicholson rallies his soldiers to build the strongest bridge in the shortest time possible. Hard work and resiliency are virtues that are often required especially when undertaking a task that is involving under unfavorable conditions. Being prisoners, it is unexpected that Colone Nicholson can attach any importance to a bridge that will only benefit his captors. However, that is exactly what the Colonel does. His motivation for this kind of approach is to demonstrate that British soldiers are strong, resilient, and hard working. The Colonel succeeds in building the bridge and in demonstrating the virtue of hard work and resiliency (Albert, 1993). In the short video “Undercover Farmers” virtue is demonstrated by farmers through the use of diverse cover crops as a way of increasing the yield by the farmers. The farmers demonstrate that use of different types of cover crops improves soil fertility thereby increasing yields of cash crops. The farmers succeed in demonstrating virtue because the yield and subsequently profits from the farms in increased. The video can also be used to teach people on the use of diverse cover crops to increase yields. Cover crops are basically crops that are planted to protect the soil and improve soil fertility before the planting of cash crops (USDA NRCS ENT SC, 2012, Sep. 20).

References

Albert, T. (Producer), & Ramis, H. (Director). (1993). Groundhog day [Motion picture]. United States: Columbia Pictures.

USDA NRCS ENT SC. (2012, Sep. 20).  Under cover farmers – feature length  [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWXCLVCJWTU