Forrest Gump

I was struggling with the idea of the idiot savant during our last class but realized after watching Forrest Gump what the idiot savant represents and how the character helps develop a certain lens the reader can wear while reading Rebecca.  I imagine everyone has seen Forrest Gump so I don't want to summarize the plot, but basically Forrest is slightly retarded and no one thinks that much of him besides his mom and Jenny.  What I realized though is that throughout all of the chaos during the time in the movie, Forrest seems to be the only person with a stable grip on the situations he and others face.  He never falls into the manipulation of others and never manipulates anyone, he's just a good guy who's out there doing all he can to improve the world.  I'm going to try to draw a parallel between him and Ben, because no one expects much from Ben, and frankly, Rebecca hated him.  However, Ben seems to be the only contrast from all of the manipulation at Manderley, and he is the only person in the book to hold Rebecca in a negative light.  Not sure what this means for the rest of the book, but Ben seems to be a pretty important character that chills out in the background and under the radar.