Redeeming a Sinful World

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“Princess Mononoke” is a story of aprince, Ashitaka, who, in a battle with a demon, is cursed and is forced to gofind the cure for the curse through the nature god. On his journey to find thenature god, the prince encounters Princess Mononoke, a girl raised by nature,who is at battle with civilization. The civilization is led by Lady Eboshi whois industrializing a town and destroying the nature around it. A man named Jigothen comes into the conflict and enlists the help of Lady Eboshi in finding thenature god and beheading it, so that he may gain the reward set on its head.   It is very easy to say that thisstory is opening up the discussion on what humans are doing to nature; thathumans are so caught up in creating new weaponry that they completely forgetabout the gods around them that take care of the nature. I would argue that thestory is more a story of redemption. The main civilization shown throughoutthis film is the village of Iron Town. Iron town does exactly what it soundslike; it creates iron. This town is led by Lady Eboshi who shows the firstglance of redemption through her choice in workers. Lady Eboshi does not hire abunch of men to work her iron mills; she hires women out of whorehouses tocreate the iron and lepers to create weaponry out of the iron. Redemption alsoshows its way into the story through the main character, Ashitaka. Ashitaka ison a quest for healing. On this quest he runs into the conflict between IronTown and nature. When Ashitaka runs into the leader of nature side of theconflict, Princess Mononoke, he immediately falls for her. When PrincessMononoke decides to attack Iron Town, Ashitaka is forced to break up a fightbetween Lady Eboshi and Princess Mononoke by knocking both of them out. He thenproceeds to carry Princess Mononoke out of Iron Town, getting himself shot onthe way out. The Princess, in seeing what he has done for her, gets him to thecenter of the forest where the nature god dwells where Ashitaka finds himselfhealed by the waters of the nature god. Later in the story, Jigo and his menmarch on the dwelling of the nature spirit and behead the nature god. The bodyof the nature god goes on a rampage to find his head, to which Ashitaka andPrincess Mononoke go out and take back the nature god’s head from Jigo, restoringorder to the world. In returning the nature god’s head, Ashitaka is healed ofhis curse and the world is filled with new growth. As you can see, redemptionis the main premise of this story as Ashitaka redeems himself of his curse andthe world is redeemed by the Ashitaka’s sacrifice.
Question 1: What is our role intaking care of nature?
Question 2: What lessons come outof this film? What did you learn?
Question 3: One of the other themesof this movie is “sin” invading the world. How is “sin” portrayed in thecharacters of “Princess Mononoke”? What affect does “sin” have on thecharacters?