MovieChat Forums > Jacob's Ladder (1990) Discussion > Question about the ending (Spoilers)

Question about the ending (Spoilers)

posted 11 years ago by okjolly
6 replies | jump to latest

When Jacob goes into the big house where his son is, why does the doorman refer to him as Doctor? And was that the house he lived in with his wife previously? I thought he worked at the post office lol

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] okjolly 11 years ago

ohhh ok, makes sense, thx!

[–] daddie0 11 years ago

I agree with you, except I believe he got his degree before the war, so returning "home" was truly going back to his former life before the war.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] harrison_1 9 years ago

Can some one give me an idea of what may have been in the Deleted post. How he all of a sudden became a Doctor is a mystery. But even more confusing was the fact that I thought the scene of him and his son going up stairs seemed to be conveying that they were both heading to the afterlife. But then all of a sudden they show Jacob back in Vietnam alive (as a doctor) examining the body of some other guy lying on the bed. So is Jacob dead or what ?

[–] Edward_de_Vere 9 years ago

Can some one give me an idea of what may have been in the Deleted post. How he all of a sudden became a Doctor is a mystery. But even more confusing was the fact that I thought the scene of him and his son going up stairs seemed to be conveying that they were both heading to the afterlife. But then all of a sudden they show Jacob back in Vietnam alive (as a doctor) examining the body of some other guy lying on the bed. So is Jacob dead or what ?

He may have gotten his PhD before being drafted or enlisting. The other soldiers in his platoon refer to him as "Professor" - that could have just been because he was a bookworm, or he actually was a professor before going to Vietnam.

And yes, at the end of the film Jacob is dead, which means that everything that happened during his post-war "return" to New York only happened in his mind as he was dying. Since we see Jacob's dead body (it isn't "some other guy") on the gurney and the two Army doctors talking about his death, it's pretty explicit and unambiguous.