Jamal walking with Forrester.

      Throughout the film, Jamal and Forrester form an unbreakable friendship. Forrester helps Jamal overcome several obstacles and challenges in his young life, but Jamal helps and changes Forrester as well, possibly more drastically than Jamal himself. By its attention to detail through motifs and parallels of Jamal and Forrester with several aspects of the real world, Finding Forrester demonstrates how much Forrester is changed and improved by Jamal, by showing Forrester learn to trust and care for Jamal.

      Stanley Williams points out a great parallel between Jamal and the poem The Raven (Williams). Early on in the movie, Jamal is sitting in class listening to his English teacher talk about the famous poem The Raven by Edgar Alan Poe. The Raven is about a depressed man who has shut himself in his room and closed himself off from the world, much like William Forrester. The poem then talks about how a raven comes knocking on the man’s door and lands on a bust of Pallas, a Greek God of wisdom. In Finding Forrester, Jamal quite literally comes knocking on Forrester’s door in search of wisdom. But these paralleled actions produce a similarity that contrasts in meaning. In the poem, the raven is a constant and nagging reminder of the depression and sadness that the man wallows in; whereas, Jamal is the opposite. Jamal enters Forrester’s life and brings friendship and a renewed sense of purpose to the reclusive writer. Jamal has such an impact on Forrester, that he eventually emerges from his reclusive life and gets back out into the world.

      A motif in the film also points to Forrester forgoing his reclusive life. In the beginning of the film, before Jamal and Forrester have met, Jamal breaks into Forrester’s house on a dare and accidentally leaves his backpack. Jamal’s backpack contains the notebooks on which Jamal writes in secret. Forrester finds the notebooks and goes through them, marking them up in red pen, the biggest marking saying, “Where are you taking me?”. In writing, this question refers to the authors direction and it is used to help direct the focus of the paper. But later in the film, the question is reflected when Jamal takes Forrester out of his apartment and to a basketball game and the Yankees stadium. Throughout this sequence, it seems that Forrester is again silently asking Jamal, where are you taking me. This motif offers the viewer the trust Forrester is putting in Jamal. When written in Jamal’s notes, “where are you taking me” is just something that a professional writer would do when he came across some writing. But after Forrester had locked himself in his house for 40 years, the implied question becomes much more meaningful. Forrester’s trust in his student allowed Jamal to help him back out into the world.

Forrester counseling Jamal about his writing.

      Another motif in the story is Forrester’s wish that Jamal keep Forrester’s whereabouts a secret. Several times throughout the movie, he tells Jamal that he can never tell anyone that he lives there in order to maintain his shut-in lifestyle. When Jamal first asks Forrester to help him with his writing, this is the biggest condition that Forrester has. Jamal tries several times to discourage Forrester from hiding himself away from the world, but Forrester maintains his wish to be cut off. Eventually Forrester tells Jamal why he shut himself off from the world in a deep expression of friendship to Jamal. This show of trust causes Jamal to keep his promise to Forrester, even when he is accused of plagiarism. Through some miscommunication, Jamal accidentally plagiarizes one of Forrester’s previous works. Jamal is faced with expulsion from the school, unless he can get the permission of the original writer, William Forrester. Jamal refuses to betray his trust and friendship in Forrester and accepts expulsion rather than break his promise. Forrester is deeply moved by this and decides to not only come back out into the world to prevent Jamal's expulsion, but to reintegrate back into society as well. Even though Jamal came to Forrester asking for help, Jamal, the young black kid from the Bronx, ended up helping Forrester deal with his family issues and expunge his unhealthy lifestyle.