54 pages • 1 hour read
Tom AnglebergerThe Strange Case of Origami Yoda
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: Origami
Origami—”to fold paper”—is a Japanese art form in which a single sheet of paper is folded, without cuts or glue, into a shape that represents a bird, flower, or other common thing. The practice was active in Japan by the late 1500s, and formal decorative systems were introduced. During the late 1800s, European techniques of napkin folding were added to the form. Origami technique expanded greatly during the 1900s. Interest in the mathematics of folds also increased, adding complexity.
Today, origami is practiced worldwide, mainly as a hobby. A related art, Kirigami—“to cut paper”—uses origami techniques but also makes cuts that sometimes create long strings of repeating shapes.
The centerpiece of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is origami-shaped like the character Yoda from the Star Wars movies. Dwight Tharp, an origami hobbyist, creates origami Yoda, using it as a puppet to dispense advice to his fellow students and to influence events on campus. This unusual use of the origami art form speaks to Dwight’s strange and eccentric mind.
Cultural Context: Myths and Star Wars
The film series Star Wars, a half-century after its birth, continues to draw interest with its heroic knights, evil emperor, and saga of planetary societies struggling to be free. The characters attract devoted fans who fawn over their every move as the epic story evolves.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda centers around a small paper doll in the shape of Star Wars’ Yoda. Yoda is a short, green humanoid with pointy ears. He’s a leader of the Jedi Knights, highly trained warriors who once kept the peace in a far-away galaxy, but who were nearly wiped out during an interstellar coup organized by an evil emperor. Yoda is known for his wisdom; his teaching techniques and advice resemble those of an old martial-arts expert—a Japanese Zen master, perhaps, or a trainer of Shaolin warrior-priests, monks who train in China.
In the Star Wars world, Yoda’s counsel is highly prized. His advice—“Do or do not […] There is no try” (118)—seems grounded in deep, hard-earned experience. For Dwight, this makes Yoda ideal as an apparent source of wisdom. Yoda speaks in a gruff, singsong voice. He employs an unusual syntax that puts the object of the sentence first, followed by the subject and verb. For example, when advising Kellen Campbell how to make a water stain on his pants not look like pee, he instructs: “All of pants you must wet” (21). When Dwight gives advice as origami Yoda, he attempts to imitate Star Wars’ Yoda’s speech and mannerisms but does so poorly; despite this, the kids at his school come to believe that Dwight is channeling Yoda’s spirit.
Yoda is a practitioner of the Force. This energy source, according to Star Wars’ Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, is “created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together” (Lucas, George. Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope. 1977). This Force, like the chi of Buddhism and East Asian martial arts, is said to be a source of personal power. The Force enables those adept at channeling it to move objects, influence other people’s thoughts, and alter events.
One who controls the Force must be very wise. Yoda is wise. The kids thus take whatever he says seriously, even though he is a paper puppet manipulated by a “goofball” student that nobody thinks is the least bit astute. Somehow, Origami Yoda’s predictions prove accurate. The weight of the Star Wars universe, with its Jedi knights and the Force, presses down on the children and compel them to take Dwight’s words of wisdom seriously.
Yoda serves mainly as a jumping-off point for the story of a boy who’s unremarkable except for his awkwardness, his genius for origami, and the “strange” wisdom, Force-inspired or not, that flows from his paper creation.
