'You’re The Best Around': Burke’s Guilt and Redemption in The Karate Kid

• In Event: Scholar to Scholar II

Abstract

The 1984 film The Karate Kid is rife with examples of Burke’s concepts of identity, guilt, redemption, and transcendence. The present critical analysis of the film clarifies the motives of Johnny tormenting Daniel, of Miyagi’s role as redeemer, and the journey of Daniel’s restoration back to order. Common themes of the film are also revealed to be age as wisdom, racism as transformative and poverty as a means to refine the individual.

Author

• Scott Church, University of Nebraska, Lincoln