The Enlightened Despereaux Govinda Tanikella
1/11/16
Period 1
The Renaissance was a time of rebirth of greco-roman culture and was also a time for questioning. The Renaissance led into a time when philosophers rejected absolutism and emphasized reasoning and individualism, known as The Enlightenment. The movie Tale of Despereaux is most likely seen as a movie for entertainment purposes only. Contrary to this, the movie also represents the major ideas of the renaissance and the ideas of the enlightenment brought up by philosophers. Between the lines you will notice multiple references to humanism, symbolic meanings, and references to philosophers. What is thought of as a children’s movie, embodies a lot of history.
Francesco Petrarca, also known as Petrarch, kept a journal in which he detailed his everyday life and emotions, for this he is the father of humanism. Humanism is the heavy emphasis on the human race over spiritual or divine figures. Humanism is broken up into 5 different categories: individualism, worldliness, learning, antiquity, and reform. There is one iconic peace made by Raphael which embodied all the 5 aspects of humanism, The School of Athens. Despereaux and Roscuro’s defiance of their rat and mouse stereotype is a perfect example of individualism. From the beginning we know that Despereaux is unlike the other mice. The way mice work in his society did not please him, the mice are cowards. Through out the movie we see that Despereaux does things like talking to humans and reading books which distinguish him from the other mice. Despereaux liked the light, and so did Roscuro. Although Roscuro is a rat he was different because he liked the light, all other rats would hide in darkness. The movie exemplifies the evil nature of rats and the virtuous nature of the mice. In the beginning when he falls in the queen’s soup it supports the idea of rats being resented by the people. Due to him being a rat you may think that he would try and get revenge for his sentence to the dungeon. Instead he understands what he had done bad and saves her at the end. This relentless pursuit of forgiveness makes him different from the other rats like the rat king. The Rat King also brings out Roscuro’s true kind nature because when Despereaux is taken by the rats it was Roscuro’s job to send the cat out, but he disregarded that order and in fact saves Despereaux. Roscuro’s kind nature despite him being a rat and Despereaux’s bravery despite him being a mouse show how they are independent and disregard their stereotypes. Individualism is shown in the School of Athens because of two things. Raphael, the painter, includes himself discreetly in the painting. Another way The School of Athens shows individualism is through the main focus on Plato and Aristotle. Roscuro is not just a light loving rat, he is also an explorer. When we are introduced to Roscuro, he is on a ship sailing to the Kingdom of Dor’s dock for the Royal Soup Day. This wanting to explore the world is known as worldliness. Worldliness is shown in The School of Athens because the matters that are being discussed are about math and the sciences instead of god.
Despereaux is a very brave mouse, and also a very curious mouse. Throughout the movie Despereaux visits a library where he is supposed to be eating the books, but instead he reads them. In this book that he read he learns about the code of chivalry and loyalty, this inspires him to save the princess. His effort to read this book, no matter how dangerous, represents the learning aspect of humanism. This learning aspect is incorporated in The School of Athens because of how Euclid is working on geometry and philosophers are discussing their ideas. The movie also has many references to the Ancient Greek and Roman times. In the dungeon, where the rats are, there is a coliseum type structure where they have events going on. In ancient Greek and Roman times they had gladiator fights. This is similar to the fight that Despereaux had with the Cat in the rat coliseum. In the movie we see that the rat’s main meeting place was this coliseum type structure, just like the actual coliseum was used. Raphael used antiquity in The School of Athens by adding barrel vaults, arches, and two statues of Apollo and Athena. Due to Despereaux and Roscuro, the society they live in has changed. Despereaux encouraged bravery and knowledge among his fellow mice. At the end of the movie the mice were jumping traps and doing things that they would have never done if it wasn’t for Despereaux’s bravery and disobedience of accepted behavior. Roscuro brought a new reputation to himself, although he was the reason why they were banished from the Kingdom of Dor in the first place. Roscuro and Despereaux bringing change to the world that they live in is them reforming their world. This is similar to the reformation of the Catholic Church that happened due to their abuse. People didn't like the Church’s way of operation just like Despereaux didn't like the ways mice were, so the Church was changed and Despereaux’s society was changed. Reformity was shown in The School of Athens because of how people are acting. In the past what ever the teacher said the student would have to agree, but in the picture the philosophers are communicating which shows the reformity in how people learn.