Wolf Children is a Japanese animated film that is narrated by a nostalgic character, Yuki. This coming-of-age story follows a young mother, Hana, who is left to raise two children--Ame and Yuki--with lupine qualities after their father suddenly dies. Hana makes the decision to move out from the city and into the countryside to shield her children from the judgemental world. Wolf Children is a one hour fifty-seven minute reel that reminds the spectator that achievement of a state of wholeness is through exploration. State of wholeness is gradually revealed by the use of literary devices: symbolism and allegory. Ame is the definitive of rain, metaphorically and literally. As stated in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, “It’s never just rain” (Foster 70). Rain is a symbolic weather condition that can give off factors of …show more content…
In Wolf Children, a storm brewed on the cold horizon promising nothing but winds to level even the mightiest trees to the soil. Ame is faced with a dilemma: to stay or to leave, to embark on journey or to settle down, to risk his life or to stay safe and sound. Ultimately, he chooses the steep, rigid mountains over his home in the flatlands …show more content…
It requires one to endure all the mishaps, maneuver through all the obstacles and recuperate to come back stronger than before. Wolf Children incorporates literary devices such as symbolism and allegories to engage the audience’s imagination, creativity and inventiveness to further understand hidden messages at another level. From symbolism with weather and names to allegories with a neurological condition, it all ties in together with attaining a state of undivided oneness or total unity after exploring oneself and their surroundings. As Thomas C. Foster articulated, “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (Foster