Joyce, Kurosawa and Star Wars: 'monomyth' (FW 581.24)
Eishiro Ito
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Abstract
T. S. Eliot defended Joycefs method of mythic parallelism in gUlysses, Order and Myth.h It is well-known that when George Lucas wrote early scripts for Star Wars in the early-1970s he referred to Joseph Campbellfs The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) in which Campbell introduced gmonomyth,h or the herofs journey, the common mythological/narratological concept in three acts: departure (separation), initiation and return. He describes 17 stages of the monomyth as a typical pattern. The term was borrowed from Finnegans Wake (581.24). It can be useful to compare the story of Stephen Dedalus, particularly in the Bildungsroman A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, with that of Luke Skywalker, especially in Episode IV. A New Hope.
Lucas has admitted how he has been influenced by Campbell and the Japanese moviemaker Akira Kurosawa to create the Star Wars saga. According to Michael Kaminski, Lucas has acknowledged a great influence of Kurosawafs The Hidden Fortress (1958): for instance, Princess Yuki corresponds with Princess Leia, Tahei & Matashichi with C-3PO & R2-D2. Converting the dateless historical Japanese setting (jidaigeki or Japanese sword fight dramas) to a space movie ga long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,h Lucas enriched the movie series with many myths and elements around the world, especially from the Middle East and the Far East. This paper explores the monomyths of Joycefs novels, Kurosawafs films and Star Wars from an Oriental perspective. Keywords: James Joyce, Akira Kurosawa, Joseph Campbell, Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man |
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full version is available in The Katahira: Studies in English & Literature, Vol. 53. The Katahira Society, March 2018, 1-18. Copyright 2018
Eishiro Ito
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