Moana Research Paper

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Walt Disney Pictures released Moana in theaters on November 23, 2016. Moana begins with an ancient Polynesian story about a goddess named Te Fiti, who cursed the sea with monsters and all islands with a darkness when Maui, a demigod, stole her heart (Clements). Moana’s tribe legend is that the ocean will one day pick someone to find Maui, so he can return Te Fiti’s heart and heal the islands (Clements). After the legend is told, the main character Moana is introduced as a toddler, standing by the ocean and it is revealed that she has been chosen as the one to return Te Fiti her heart; however, it takes years for her to discover that this is why she feels a pull to the ocean (Clements). Despite their depleting coconut and fish supply; Moana’s …show more content…

However, their reality is not the truth. Moana’s island is like the cave; her people are stuck on that island because her tribe’s reality is that the ocean is dangerous. Moana’s tribe fears the ocean, and even though their fishing grounds are becoming bare, they are afraid to sail beyond the reef (Clements). Moana’s people know the legends that the ocean is crawling with monsters that take no pity on people sailing the ocean. The legends that create the fear of the ocean are like the shadows casted on the wall for the prisoner’s in Plato’s cave. Reality is something that is established by the mind, what a person knows to be the truth is what they believe is real. The legend has created a wall between the tribe and the ocean because it is what the people believed to be true. Reality for a person can be changed because of something that is said, or in Moana’s case, a story told. Moana’s peoples’ reality is not sailing the sea to find food, for the people it is staying on the island and worrying about the end of their food supply. Unlike other people in her tribe, Moana feels like there is something more outside her island. Like Moana, the prisoners could be feeling that maybe there was something more than just the cave (Powell 41). Moana’s pull to the ocean is her own way of looking beyond the shadows …show more content…

When Plato’s prisoner that is chosen leaves the cave and sees the sun for the first time, he is in shock that his former reality is false (451). Like the prisoner, the islanders are timid towards the ocean because the stories that they are told as children is what they know to be true (Clements). Moana’s people have a tough time realizing that the ocean is not as dangerous as they have been taught (Clements). Moana’s people grew to fear the ocean and the monsters within, and it is cowardice, according to Kant, that is what keeps a person from becoming enlightened (1). Because Moana’s people are frightened by the ocean, they cannot be enlightened until someone comes out of “the cave” to find the truth beyond the reef of their island. Moana may be viewed as the curious prisoner from Plato’s cave; she has a constant urge to be on the ocean and find out what is out there (Clements). Moana is the minority in her tribe; while everyone is obeying the law about staying away from the dangerous ocean, she is trying to find a way to go deeper into the sea (Clements). Kant argues, “Enlightenment is the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority” (1). Moana wants to be enlightened; she is not afraid of the ocean, and she sees a reason to go out onto the sea

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