Naoki Minamino
Monomyth is called by Japanese “貴種流離譚 Kisyuryuritan”.
This is a story about a great person journey to another place or other dimensional world.
Monomyth can be categorized.
Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” is considered the type of monomyth,
Hero and his party drifts to an uninhabited island.
They live there, and then keep an English lifestyle.
Japanese writer Masahiko Shimada wrote “This novel was based on the life of the early colonial period of the British Empire.”
I think that Defoe may want to tell the reader “Uncivilised lands are not good.”.
In other words, he preaches uncivilized lands.
Famous Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi wrote the novel “Indian Nocturne”.
This novel’s hero goes to India.
That’s because he wants to search for his friend who is lost in India.
He meets the prostitute who can’t forget the same friend.
He meets the doctor who want to be a heart surgeon.
That’s because the doctor thinks that the human essence is in the heart.
But he is doing a job that is like chores.
He meets the man who say “I go to Varanasi. I will die there.” in station platform.
And then he talks about body and soul with the man.
He meets the woman who defrauding her loving man out of money.
He meets the boy who is with the monkey-like brother on his shoulder.
He asks them to do fortune-telling.
He meets the man who belong to Theosophical Society.
He talks about literature with him.
He dreams he meets unique man who acts something, and then is nursed by priest.
He meets beautiful woman, and then talks about novels.
That’s this novel’s content.
“Indian Nocturne” is the novel about meeting the people who are like European culture.
In addition, the novel is about rediscovery of Europe, and then tells an Indian about what is Europe.
Italian writer Dino Buzzati’s “Il deserto dei Tartari ” is a military novel.
Hero goes to the border with the Tatar in the desert.
He is moved by the fortress in the desert.
He serves in the fortress.
He becomes a watchman there.
However, he hears auditory hallucinations.
He follows military which makes a painful march.
Finally when hero can battle against Tartari, he dies.
That’s the novel’s story,
In the novel, Dino Buzzati depicts defeat and regret in a foreign land.
This novel is similar Kafka’s “Das schloss”.
“Das schloss” is called “The Castle” in English.
The locale of “Das schloss” is not a specific place.
The locale is the town located on the nearby castle, and such a town is everywhere in the world.
In fact, hero drifts away to a different dimension.
He worries about the life and the town, and then endures.
This novel depicts defeat and regret in the different dimension.
Dante’s “La Divina Commedia” include all types of monomyths.
Dante preaches hell for condemning sinners, and then endures for purity in the sins in Purgatory.
Finally he thinks about ideal Firenze, and then he found ideal heaven.
He used universal facts and reality facts, and drew hell, Purgatory, Heaven.
It is the essence of what was written in “La Divina Commedia”.
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven exist before living and after died.
He guessed Hell, Prugatory and Heaven, and wrote how do they exist in the real world.
This skill is complexed.
Monomyth reaches an extreme, as raises the idea for place.
That’s because Dante wrote about how does the heaven exist, and how should does heaven exist.
And then he reaches the preaching that the real world also should be the same as heaven.
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