Forrest Gump

Before the all-state football banquet, Forrest is unable to use the bathroom because he gets his zipper stuck. He sits through the endless night of speeches fighting the urge to urinate. When it is his turn on the microphone, he says he has to pee, which annoys his coach. Then he is introduced to a college football coach, who thinks that Forrest might be good enough to play at the university level. But after Forrest takes a college entrance exam and fails badly, the coach says the college won’t admit him.

Shortly after, Forrest is drafted into the army. However, after a battery of mental tests, he receives a temporary deferment based on his low intelligence.

One night, a female boarder who is living with them takes Forrest up to her room and gives him some candy. Then she urges him to lie back and close his eyes. He does not give details and keeps his eyes closed through as she performs a sexual act on him. He never tells anyone, but this gives him the courage to think about asking Jenny on a date. His mother arranges for them to go to the movies, where they see Bonnie and Clyde. Forrest laughs loudly during the most violent scenes, which embarrasses Jenny and makes her slink down in her seat. When Forrest tries to pull her back up, her dress rips. They are suddenly they’re confronted by ushers, and then arrested by the police.

After several days in jail, Forrest appears in court, where the Judge seems predisposed to go lightly on him. Forrest’s mother says that he just got a letter saying that he has been accepted into college after all. As long as he’ll play football, he has a full ride scholarship. The judge agrees and Forrest goes unpunished. 

Forrest arrives at the University and is installed with some of the other players in a dormitory called the “Ape Dorm.” It’s a dirty building with filthy floors and walls. Forrest’s roommate is named Curtis and everyone says they’ll get along well, implying that they share similar mental abilities.

His new coach, Coach Bryant, is obviously frustrated with Forrest. He can’t teach him to catch the ball, and Forrest can’t memorize plays. He is struggling in class, as well, but only at first. It turns out that he can is able to learn math. While at first he thinks he is a failure in English, he writes an autobiographical sketch of his time in the school for children with special needs, and his story about Jenny and the movie theater. The teacher praises it, encouraging him to enroll in the creative writing program.

Finally Coach Bryant does what Forrest’s high school coach did: he just gives Forrest the ball and tells him to run. During their first game Forrest scores several touchdowns and is instantly a school hero. But that night, he skips the after-game parties and sits in his room. Upstairs, he hears someone playing a harmonica. It’s a man named Bubba. Forrest asks Bubba if he can try it, and Forrest is a natural at the harmonica. While out on a walk later that night, he hears Jenny calling his name. She says she’s in a folk band that is playing at the Student Center soon, and she hopes he’ll come. She also says that she’s not mad about what happened at the movie theater, which is a relief for him. 

Forrest goes to watch Jenny’s band play. During one of the songs, he takes out his harmonica and plays along. They all stop and listen to him, then invite him to start playing with them. For a while, he does, making twenty five dollars a night for their shows. But when he finds out Jenny has been sleeping with the band’s banjo player, it sours the experience for him. One night he goes out to the parking lot to look for Jenny before a show. He sees her in a car with steamed windows. The banjo player is on top of her. Not understanding that they’re having sex, Forrest opens the door and pulls Jenny out to “save” her. The band kicks him out immediately, although Jenny is more exasperated with him than angry.

He becomes better friends with Bubba, but faces academic challenges in English class. Professor Boone has realized that Forrest’s autobiography wasn’t a joke, and that Forrest cannot keep up with the class’s actual requirements. Soon Forrest is asked to come and play the harmonica in front of a medical class. He hears the professor use the words idiot savant and doesn’t understand what it means.

The chapter ends with his team losing a big football game. He’s disappointed that they weren’t able to win, because he thinks Jenny was probably in the crowd and he wanted her to see him win at something. 

Forrest flunks out of college and there is nothing that Coach Bryant can do to keep him in school. When he gets back to Mobile, Alabama, there’s a letter from the Army. Because he is no longer enrolled in college, his deferment has ended. He reports to an Army training base days later. In the Army, Forrest’s main impression is that everyone yells at him, but they’re meaner about it than they were on the football field. One night when the camp cook is unavailable, Forrest tries to cook a stew in a boiler that is not meant for cooking. It explodes and knocks a man through a wall, but everyone lives. One month later, Forrest’s company is shipped to Vietnam.

Shortly after arriving, his company is attacked by mortar fire and Forrest sees his first dead bodies. Because he is so big, he is put in charge of carrying nearly everyone’s ammunition. During another attack, he is navigating his way through a trench when he hears someone calling his name. It’s Bubba. He was injured and could no longer play football, so now is fighting in Vietnam with Forrest, who is thrilled to see him. 

The company is ambushed and caught in an intense firefight. A man named Bones is shot and killed in front of Forrest. When Doyle, another soldier, is hit, Forrest puts him over his shoulder and evacuates him, yelling so loudly that it scares the rest of the Vietnamese attackers away. That night, Bubba is transferred into Forrest’s unit. He tells Forrest that he grew up working on shrimp boats, and that when they’re home, he wants them to start a shrimping business together.

During a trek through a rice paddy, the company isattacked again. Once again, Forrest carries wounded men out of danger, but then he realizes that he can’t find Bubba. As he searches, he’s shot in the buttocks. When he does find his friend, Bubba has been shot twice in the chest. He asks Forrest to play a song on the harmonica and dies. Forrest’s commanding officer tells Forrest that he’s going home. His time in the war is over.