Cempaka Indah Febrianti, , 2250407050 (2011) The Values of Honorable Defeat in Zwick’s “The Last Samurai. Under Graduates thesis, Universitas Negeri Semarang.

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Abstract

Honor is important for everyone. People will struggle their lives to reach honor from others by doing everything that they beleive will make their lives wothwhile, and express it in their own ways according to their cultures. As part of people, Samurai also have their own ways. They end their own lives by committing suicide to reach their honors instead of living in shame when they are defeated in war. This final project is about the values of honorable defeat in The Last Samurai and the code which reflects it. The aims of the study are to analyze the main theme of The Last Samurai, the code which reflects the theme, and how the code reflects it. I used qualitative method with psychology and anthropology in literature as the approaches to answer the problems stated in this study. The main sources of the study were the film and its script. The data taken from the script were in the form of narration, description, and dialogues, whereas the data taken from the film were in the form of pictures. The data were collected by reading the script and watching the film, and then they were identified in relation to the statement of problems. After identifying all the data, I correlate them to the culture and ideologies existing in that era. The next step was selecting the data to answer the statements of problem. From the data analysis, I conclude that the main theme of The Last Samurai is honorable defeat which is showed by being faithful, respectful, honest, brave, and honorable. This main theme is illustrated by the gestures of hara-kiri, a suicide ritual in Japan to regain the feeling of honor, and ojigi, bow that is used to express the feelings of respect and apology. There are two kinds of hara-kiri which are used to reflect the main theme of the film, the hara-kiri with some rituals, and the hara-kiri without any ritual. On the other hand, there are three kinds of ojigi which are used. They are ritsurei with saikerei as the degree level, zarei with keirei as the degree level, and zarei with saikerei as the degree level. Hopefully, this study is useful for those who are keen on film, especially The Last Samurai, adolescents, and those who are interested in honorable defeat. Moreover, I wish the study can encourage the students of English Literature to conduct other studies about honorable defeat revealed in literature.

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