Of Roots and Alienation: Human-Nature Dualism in Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Andy Serkis’ Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

Abstract

The research paper analyses Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Andy Serkis’ Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle under the purview of Human-nature dualism. The introductory paragraphs offer a groundwork keeping in mind the said binaries; the concept that man and nature exists separately and in isolation. There is also an exploration of anthropocentrism; the belief that the non-human exists as an instrument for the human. This is followed by the analysis of the two narratives for which Val Plumwood’s Environmental Ethics (2007) acts as a lens. Where Princess Mononoke offers a view of the annihilation of the respective man-nature environments followed by a hope of rehabilitation of the two spaces in integration, Mowgli presents a deeply philosophical question about belongingness, the subsequent disillusionment and climatic acceptance of Nature in Man and Man in Nature.