After watching the film, Entertaining Angels, I arrived at mixed feelings towards a woman with a truly unique character. The Hollywood version of someone's life does not ever really do justice and often colors up a person's more complex life. .
The story of Dorothy Day is full of extreme peaks and pits. As the movie starts, Dorothy is portrayed as a wildly opinionated communist whose passion of political expression, drinking, smoking and sex defines her character. Dorothy's worldview sits in strict selfishness trying to fulfill her immediate desires. Dorothy's idea of her own identity is a political rebel fighting politics and joining the then sexual revolution of the 1920's.
As Dorothy's story continues her need of passion leads to pregnancy and the choice of an illegal abortion. Her worldview with the choice of the abortion stills shows that Dorothy is very much exclusively invested into herself. This incident does however leave her with a terrible and horrifying experience that does eventually changed her character completely. .
As Dorothy leaves the operation she discovers that the father of the aborted baby has left her abandoned. Dorothy retreats to a beach house to try to start over again, this part is very dramatic. She soon runs into a man on the beach scavenging for food. Dorothy's curiosity leads her looking for the man at the city church. Dorothy meets a nun and sees the homeless man with others preparing dinner for themselves and others that will be joining. At this point Dorothy's character begins to change. Dorothy can begin to see that she is being selfish in the way she lives her life that other people have lives that are much harder then her own. With this man as her symbol she can now begin to shift her world view from selfishness into insights of self-sacrifice. Dorothy is far from conversion but she can begin to understand that a change is needed.
As Dorothy becomes more involved in the church's meals for the homeless, a man of opinionated communist beliefs comes into her life.