The concept of “The Hero’s Journey” plays a major role in nearly every piece of fiction humanity has created since its inception, from epic poems to blockbuster movies. In many ways, works of fiction and some pieces of nonfiction could not exist and would not make sense without the concept of a Hero’s Journey; it allows the reader to comprehend and follow the progression of characters over the course of the story. While Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road may not display most of the archetypal qualities found in classic Hero’s Journeys such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, it most clearly exemplifies the qualities of a Hero’s Journey through the Boy’s character in relation to the mentor, tests and enemies, and the …show more content…
The duo’s entire journey is, in fact, a seemingly endless series of obstacles which the Man and Boy must face. These obstacles range from cannibals slowly trekking down the road to Mother Nature itself. For example, the Man and Boy barely escape cannibalistic gangs both when a gang unexpectedly appears on the road and when the Man discovers the basement of one such gang packed with naked men and women. In addition, even after securing a source of food, such as when they find the bunker, the Man and Boy always face the potential of starvation and the freezing cold weather because the Man knows they cannot carry all the food they find and that they cannot stay in one location for an extended period of time. Moreover, on two occasions, once when the cannibalistic gang find their cart and once when the thief on the beach steals the cart, do the Man and Boy lose nearly everything they have (though, they eventually catch the beach thief and, to the Boy’s disappointment and sadness, the Man forces him to give them everything he has). However, not all of the tests and enemies faced by the Man and Boy are physical obstacles; in several cases, these obstacles are their own minds. For example, the Boy sometimes expresses a desire to be with his mother in …show more content…
Since The Road is more about the Boy’s journey than his father’s, the supreme ordeal at the end of the novel is the death of the Man. The death of the Man, who acted as the Boy’s mentor during the many challenges faced by the duo, represents the largest and most devastating challenge faced by the Boy. Not only is this due to the fact that the Boy feels unprepared to continue on without his father, but it is also because the “reward” and “road back” are not immediately apparent to the Boy. Compared to even the most challenging obstacles the Boy faced in the past, the death of his father leaves him both physically and mentally pained and exhausted. However, relief from his situation arrives promptly in the form of the stranger who claims to be a “good guy,” though the Boy’s future remains forever uncertain. Therefore, the Boy’s “Hero’s Journey” in The Road, while certainly not a traditional Hero’s Journey, does contain several key elements of the journey, such as a mentor, tests, and a supreme ordeal. However, the atypical journey of the Boy, particularly the lack of a clear denouement, allows the Hero’s Journey of the Boy to become open to the interpretation of the reader, and therefore allow the reader to transpose their own experiences and journey to the Boy as he struggles to keep the fire
The novel while allowing me to gain greater insight into the role of society and expectations in shaping people, also allowed me to gain greater understating of what it means to be a hero, and allowed to reflect and reassess my previously held beliefs. Previously to the novel the image of a hero was something which exuded greatness, an
Have you ever noticed the continuous recurring theme in your favourite movies and books? That is called the hero’s journey. Bilbo Baggins, a supposedly unadventurous hobbit is requested to go on a difficult journey with a group of dwarves by none other than Gandalf, the well-known wizard himself. Ishmael Beah, a young, happy boy goes out with his friends without saying goodbye, not knowing it may be his last time to see them. While with his friends, his town gets attacked by the rebels and his whole world turns upside down.
Towards the beginning of the story the boy hasn’t accepted the norms of their world. This is because the man tries to shelter him from reality by telling him stories of the past
Michelle Moffo English 1110.03 Peter C. Dully Jr. 26 February 2018 Most people who read The Road by Cormac McCarthy would describe the novel as a very bleak and grim tale. McCarthy uses a wide array of vocabulary and imagery to create a world that the reader themselves would want to escape from, describing the world as “Barren, silent, godless” (McCarthy 4). While the novel may appear to be very depressing on the surface, the hope and goodness that exist within the two main characters, referred to as the man and the boy, keep the reader clinging to every word. It is evident that McCarthy uses the boy as an example of how religion, hope, and morality can bring people through the darkest of times.
The Hero’s Journey in Into the Woods The world is an objective place. Yet, each person’s individual world is extremely subjective. Mythology gives life meaning; the way in which it affects each person depends on their views of the world.
A cheche yet powerful tool has broken the way we write stories. The so-called ‘The Hero’s Journey’ has influenced countless well-known films and directors. For instance, the film ‘The Hunger Games’ directed by Gary Ross has set the hero – Katniss Everdeen – to follow this journey. Katniss is identified as the hero in the film because she follows the journey of a typical hero. According to the stencil, the hero of the story always starts at his or her normal life which is usually an ordinary one.
Seoyoung Kil Alex Callirgos English 12 5 October 2014 Hero archetypes in the movie “Enter the Dragon” Throughout history, people have loved literature that follows similar patterns. This was shown by Monomyth, or The Hero’s Journey, written by Joseph Campbell. The Hero’s Journey tells about a basic pattern of literature that contains a protagonist’s heroic deeds and divides numerous myths into specific structures and stages. Enter the Dragon (1973) is a Hong Kong martial arts action film directed by Robert Clouse.
In Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic novel The Road, he uses many physical objects to portray a deeper message. McCarthy creates the main character, the boy, to symbolize hope in a hopeless world. Throughout The Road the boy creates a warm presence to the cold and dark reality of what the world has become. Essentially he shines as the light of the world through all of his actions, not only with the father but with other characters that they come across in their journey along the road. The boy epitomizes the hope in which the father needs in order to continue to go throughout the doom-laden world.
Heroic Journey The book that was read was Andrew Smith’s “100 Hundred Sideways Miles”. This book describes the journey of Finn Easton, an epileptic teenager, and his struggles. The Heroic Journey is a pattern of narratives that tends to show up in stories and myths. It is seen in this book through Finn’s internal struggles trying to find meaning in life outside of his father’s book which had incorporated characteristics of him.
The hero represents a person’s unconscious self, one that eventually manifests into their identity. Furthermore, each hero undergoes a journey, one that takes them through the three rites of passage: separation, initiation, and return. The ideas of Joseph Campbell and psychiatrist Carl Jung combine to create a series of alluring archetypes that have been historically accurate throughout numerous books and movies. The idea of the hero’s journey is present in The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men. Each of these novels communicates the physical journey in a different way, but the psychology behind each step remains relatively consistent.
King Arthur is one of the best kings that has ruled over Britain, throughout all of history. Arthur ruled with honor, loyalty, and chivalry, which made him a great king. Many lessons that he learned on his journeys helped him to become the person that he is. Arthur’s journey becoming king can be seen in the novel The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White, and is very similar to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.
The Heroes Journey, identified by American scholar Joseph Campbell, is a pattern of narrative that describes the typical adventure of the main hero, whether that be a fiction or nonfiction hero. The first step is the call to adventure, where something shakes up the hero’s current situation and the hero starts experiencing change. Consequently, this theory is also applied to the fictional hero Odysseus in The Odyssey and the real-life hero Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights activist. In The Odyssey, Odysseus embarks on a 10-year voyage from Troy to Ithaca and encounters many monsters along the way including a gigantic Cyclops described as “…a brute so huge, he seemed no man at all…” (9 89-90).
The hero’s journey is a very key and notable process in movies. A good example of the process executed well is in the movie Finding Nemo. The hero’s journey has many parts, but 3 parts are really shown and executed well in the movie. These three parts in the movie that are well executed and can show the hero’s journey. The three parts are the refusal to call, tests, allies, and enemies, and the road back(flight)Through the journey of Finding Nemo Marlin goes from an overprotective father to bonding with is son.
The heroic cycle is able to be used to correlate modern “Hero’s” actions to that of ancient mythology spoken and later written thousands of years ago. Resembling a flow chart, the cycle is a step by step progression of major key plot elements that guide the Hero of a story through troubling times to utmost glory. Small variations to the cycle can be seen across the evolution of literature but at the core of every great heroic story the heroic cycle can be seen. The first step of the Heroic cycle is the introduction into the seemingly ordinary world of the Hero and the call to action of a strange quest. In
• The hero’s journey: Harry’s narrative follows an age-old pattern found in numerous myths and stories. American mythologist Joseph Campbell analyses this storyline of the journey of an archetypical hero in his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” (Campbell, 1949), a work that has inspired many writers and artists. Classic examples of Campbell’s archetypical hero include ancient Greek myths such as that of the hero Odysseus, the story of Moses and Star Wars’ protagonist Luke Skywalker (cf. Colbert, 2008, 208).