Paper #4 – Hero in Film

Paper #4 – Hero in Film

The goal for this paper is to recognize the elements of the hero’s cycle in popular films.After watching the film “The Help” which is available through any DVD rental “store” or on YouTube, please write a two and a half pages paper (again, only a guideline) identifying the parts of the hero’s cycle as it relates to the Skeeter character.

BE VERY CAREFUL TO NOT SIMPLY RETELL THE STORY OF THE MOVIE. Students have a tendency to get caught up retelling the story without identifying the steps in the hero’s cycle as it pertains to the film. One way to avoid this is to write an introduction which introduces the reader to the components of a hero’s journey and then to explain each one as it relates to the movie in subsequent paragraphs.

You must address at least 5 of the following elements of the hero’s cycle. You also want to be sure to demonstrate that you’ve actually seen the film and not just read about it.

Special Birth

Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Supernatural Aid

Crossing the First Threshold

Belly of the Whale

Road of Trials Ultimate Boon

Paper format:

Read and be familiarized with the module Attached

1. Your paper should be approximately one to two pages in length, typed, double-spaced.

2. Your paper needs to be formatted according to MLA style.

3. Just because this is an informal essay does not mean it doesn’t require good organization and academic writing.

4. It is NOT research paper , write your own THOUGHTS!.

The Hero Archetype The hero is the major archetypal symbol of the psyche; the hero archetype is fundamental to human storytelling. Because the human psyche is universal in its makeup, all humans share a common archetypal structure just as all share a common physical nature. As the individual human psyche develops it goes through the same archetypal stages that have governed the evolution of consciousness in the whole of humanity. The hero archetype exemplifies that course of development. The hero archetype embodies in person, in action, and in idea, the important values of the culture. But the hero is not conservative; the hero leads the way to constructive change. An advance in the spiritual level of a culture begins with one individual who builds upon and then transcends the collective beliefs of his people. The hero discovers new paths; the hero charts the unknown. Every culture has its heroes. According to Joseph Campbell, the mythologist who has done the most complete study of the hero archetype, a hero is a person who can go beyond his personal limitation as well as the limitations imposed upon him by his culture. A true hero’s goal is to achieve an understanding of the universal truths of mankind’s existence, and when he achieves this objective, he must return to this people to teach the lessons he has learned. As the great mother archetype was feminine in nature, the hero is considered to be masculine in nature – even if the hero figure is female. Campbell suggests that “the standard path of the mythological adventures of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation – initiation – return.” These ceremonies celebrate the birth and naming of a child, a young person’s growth into puberty, as well as milestones like marriage and burial. They mark the physical, mental and spiritual changes that young women and men undergo as they grow and develop to fill a variety of roles in society. “Apparently,” says Campbell, “there is something in these initiatory images so necessary to the psyche that if they are not supplied from without, through myth and ritual, they will have to be announced again, through dream, from within.” Fate seldom requires the hero make his journey to enlightenment without assistance. Early in his quest he meets a protective figure who by the use of some wisdom or power helps the hero to survive the trials of the initiation. These helper figures are also archetypes; they are the wise old man, the helpful animal, or even aspects of the mother archetype. The challenges the hero must face differ considerably in their particulars but are universally similar. Whatever the details of the trials, there is always a battle between the forces of good and evil. According to Campbell the true hero figure must return to his people and bring to them the “boon” he has earned. This may be a special ritual or ceremony, a period of peace and prosperity, or an insight into the real truths of mankind’s existence which the hero will try to teach to his people.

The Hero’s Journey – A More Detailed View Special Birth: The hero often has a special childbirth or childhood. Both Gautama Sakyamuni who was transformed into the Buddha, and Jesus Christ were born of virgin women, for example. Call to Adventure: Destiny calls the hero – The adventure may be voluntary or forced upon the hero. It may even be accidental or not noticed: the hero may suddenly find himself in the midst of an unexpected quest. The adventure can begin in an active or passive way. When Theseus arrived in Athens, he voluntarily started the adventure and chose his own course of action. Odysseus, on the other hand, wasn’t looking for another adventure to begin; the gods made that choice for him. He also was passive about the course of the adventure, having to endure the winds of Poseidon blowing him across the seas like a piece on a chessboard. Refusal of the Call: Occasionally the hero of the myth refuses the call. He may do this because he thinks he’s acting in his own interest – perhaps things should remain the way they are. The refusal shows that the psyche sees the change implied by the quest as a kind of death and resists it. Refusal can often result in a paralysis or enchantment. Campbell cites the story of Daphne running from Apollo as an example. Running in fear, she calls to her father to take away the beauty that cased Apollo to chase her. In response, she is turned into a tree. Supernatural Aid: “protective figure” – when the hero finally faces the challenge, he prepares himself with the provisions and weapons needed for his quest. In this stage, he often encounters a protective figure who will provide him with the means necessary to succeed. Crossing the First Threshold: “Unknown zone” – With the aid of a supernatural guide who represents his destiny, the hero sets out on his adventure. He reaches the gates of an unknown zone, where he encounters a threshold guardian who represents the limits of his current life. Sometimes this guardian assists the hero, while at others, he is deceitful and dangerous. The guardian represents the risky challenge of an adventure into the unknown. Belly of the Whale Experience: “The hero is swallowed up” – in the course of his adventure, the hero may disappear, be magically transported, or even die. The hero is swallowed up because he does not successfully conciliate the guardian of the threshold; it appears that he has died. This stage of the journey reminds us that crossing the threshold is a form of death; the hero is swallowed up, and disappears, into another world, or into the inside of an animal. The Road of Trials – “a series of tasks” – Campbell characterizes this as a “favorite phase of the myth adventure.” Indeed the trials of the hero may be extensive, occupying the majority of his adventures. One by one, the hero completes a series of tasks. The tasks function as tests or ordeals to show the hero’s worthiness. Campbell describes the trials of the hero as symbolic of psychological dangers associated with overcoming the real problems of our lives. Variables (Change from story to story. Any given story may have only one or may have several of these): 1. Meeting with “Woman” (the goddess) 2. Sacred Marriage 3. Meeting with the Temptress The hero meets a goddess, who can be good or evil. To unite with her, the hero must ignore the temptations of human life, break the bonds of humanity to see beyond that which his human senses experience and win the boon of love “which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity.” Jung emphasized the importance of the woman the hero encountered during his adventures: they represent the anima, or the female part of a man’s psyche. This archetypical figure is essential to the development of a complete and mature personality. Campbell’s analysis incorporates two aspect s of Jung’s anima: the hero with a thousand faces encounters the goddess, and the temptress. 4. Father At-One-Ment (Atonement) The mythical father figure represents the initiatory priest who allows only the prepared hero to pass into the transformed world. His role is to test the hero to ascertain his worthiness. Like the guardian of the gate, he has both an evil and a benign aspect. He must be stern in testing the hero, but becomes loving once the hero has proven himself worthy. The father figure does not have to be the hero’s actual father, or even a human villain. 5. Theft of the Elixir (only occurs if those who have the boon don’t want the hero to have it) Sometimes the “boon” the hero has to acquire in his quest must be stolen because those who have it don’t want to give it up. Apotheosis: “Illumination” – In many stories, the hero comes to understand that the spiritual side of human existence is as real as the physical part. This understanding may grow as the hero pursues his quest, or it may come as a sudden change in his view of the world. Through his adventure, the hero achieves illumination and understanding; he is raised to a godlike stature, often by communication with a higher figure which may be male, or female, or androgynous. Campbell suggests that the hero outgrows mere mortality, and is no longer blinded by his senses’ misinterpretation of the true nature of things. In this stage he meets a spiritual guide and becomes awakened, an enlightened one, able to see through the shell of his existence and the true reality beyond. The Ultimate Boon: At the end of the adventure, the hero gains possession of an object which symbolizes the Truth experienced in the apotheosis. Because the adventure of the hero is in fact internal, the ultimate boon obtained by the hero actually symbolizes the universal force or power found within him. It is possession of the final blessed gift which will benefit the hero’s community upon his return. Again, this is symbolic and does not have to be an actual object. Call to Return: According to Campbell, the true hero figure must return to his people and bring to them the “boon” he has earned. This may be a special ritual or ceremony, a period of peace and prosperity, or an insight into the real truths of mankind’s existence which the hero will try to teach to his people. This return gives the hero an opportunity to apply his new understanding of the world. He may live an ordinary life with great wisdom or continue his magical adventures with a new inner power. Special Childhood Call to Adventure (sometimes the call is refused) If the call is refused, something happens to make the hero accept the call. Freedom to Live Master of Two Worlds Crossing of the First Threshold Threshold of Adventure Known/Physical World Belly of the Whale Experience Unknown/Spiritual World The Road of Tests/Trials Call to Return (sometimes a refusal to return) Ultimate Boon (represents knowledge gained) Apotheosis Coming to Knowledge Variables (story may have one or several of these) 1. Meeting with “Woman” 2. Sacred Marriage 3. Meeting with the Temptress 4. Father At-One-Ment (Atonement) 5. Theft of the Elixir

A Classical Greek Hero: Perseus Perseus was one of the best known classical heroes. His exploits have been celebrated by artists and recounted by poets for centuries. He embodied all of the qualities that the Greek and Roman cultures found most admirable. He was clever, enterprising, brave and noble. He rescued fair maidens and was loyal to his family. He was even a friend of the gods! The Birth His myth is told in many sources; they say that this grandfather, Acrisius, the king of Argos, had received an oracle which predicted that a son born to his daughter, Danae, would group to kill Acrisius. The fearful king had a bronze tower built, and he sealed his daughter in it to keep her from all men. The tower had only a small opening through which food and drink could be passed but through which no human being could pass. Acrisius, however, had not reckoned on the powers of a god. When Zeus saw the lovely, lonely Danae pining away in her tower, he decided to comfort her. He turned himself into a shower of golden rain and poured through the small opening into Danae’s lap. Naturally, she conceived a child – the future hero, Perseus. The Call When Acrisius discovered that despite his precautions Danae had born a son, he put his daughter and her child into a great chest and set them afloat on the sea. They were rescued by an honest fisherman, Dictys, whose brother, Polydectes, was the king of the island of Seriphos. There Danae and her son were given sanctuary in the royal household. As Perseus grew to noble manhood, the king grew to love Danae. She did not return his love, however, and persistently refused his offers of marriage. Since Danae seemed to prefer to remain with her son, the king decided to get rid of Perseus. When he heard the young man boast that he could just as easily bring the king the Gorgon’s head as any other gift, he ordered Perseus to bring him the head of the Gorgon, Medusa, whose very glance could turn a man to stone. Supernatural Aid For days Perseus wandered disconsolately, not knowing where to begin. Suddenly, the gods Athena and Hermes appeared to him and promised to help him. The first thing to do, the gods advised, was to consult the graiae1 . They could tell him how to find the 1 The Graiae or gray ladies are three old sisters who guard the ends of the earth. They have only one eye and one tooth among them. Stygian Nymphs, who, in turn, would lend him the things he needed to success in his mission. In his book Chimera, the author John Barth cleverly retells the Perseus legend. Perseus, having died, finds himself in heaven in a chamber decorated with scenes from his past life. The hero recounts the story of each scene to the nubile nymph, Calyxa. Perseus explains that his mother did not want to marry the king and that the king promised he would marry someone else if Perseus would bring to him the head of Medusa. So, banking on Dictys to safekeep her, I’d set out for Samos on a tip from half-sister Athene, to learn about life from art; for represented in her temple murals there (and so reditto’d here in mine) were all three Gorgons – snake haired, swinetoothed, buzzard-winged, brassclawed – whereof as Semisis was pointing out, only the middle one, Medusa, was mortal, decapitable, and petrifacient. Already holding the adamantine sickle Hermes had lent me and Athene’s polished shield, I stood listening, a handsome auditor I was then, to her hard instructions. Sword and shield, she said, would not suffice; one thing depended on another; just as Medusa was prerequisite to Mother’s rescue, so to kill Medusa required not only the Athenian strategy of indirection but other gear: namely, Herme’s winged sandals to take me to Gorgonsville in far-off Hyperborea, Hade’s helmet of invisibility to escape from the snake-girl sisters, and the magic kibesis to stow her head in lest she petrify all posthumously. But these accessories were in the care of Stygian nymphs whose location was known not even to my canny sister; only the grim gray Graeae could tell it, and they wouldn’t. The Tests My first task, then, clear-cut in the fourth panel, had been to hide me from Samos to Mount Atlas, where sat the crony trio on their thrones, facing outward back to back and shoulder to shoulder in a mean triangle. Some way off from its near vertex (which happens to be between terrible Dino and Pemphredo the stinger), I hid behind a shrub of briar to reconnoiter and soon induced, concerning the single eye and tooth they shared, their normal mode of circulation. Right to left things went around, eye before tooth before nothing, in a kind of rhythm, as follows: Pemphredo, say, blind and mute, sat hands in lap while Dino, on her right, wore the eye just long enough to scan her sector and Enyo, on her left, the tooth just long enough to say “Nothing,” then passed it on to Pemphredo, who passed the eye around to Enyo, put in the tooth, and said “Nothing.” Thus did report follow observation and meditation report, except that (as I learned some moments later) at the least alarm any gray lady could summon by a shoulder-tap what either other bore. For having grasped the cycle, I moved closer in a cautious gyre, keeping ever abaft the eye, at the vertex between speaker and mediator; but when I rustled a pebble underfoot, then blank Enyo, her right hand out for the eye from Pemphredo, whacked Dino into reverse and fetched a the tooth as well! Lunged to her right, Pemphredoward, just as she clapped the organ in; by the time she was toothed to cry “Something!” Pemphredo had heard me at her feet and tapped Enyo for the eye, at the same time reaching right for the her-turn tooth. Dino, unable to reply that she’d returned the tooth to Enyo, swatted back both ways; twice-tapped Enyo got her hands crossed, giving Pemphredo the eye and Dino the tooth; I dived through thrones to the center; all clapped all; eye and tooth flipped round in countercicles but could be by none installed before doubly summoned. By deftly interposing at a certain moment my right hand between Dino’s dittor and Enyo’s left I short-stopped eye; no problem then, as Pemphredo made to gum home their grim incisor, simply to over-shoulder her and excise it. The panel showed me holding both triumphantly aloft while the grieving Graeae thwacked and flopped and croaked in vain, like crippled herons. More Supernatural Aid Having the Graeeae thus at his mercy, Perseus holds the eye hostage and returns the tooth so they can tell him the location of the Stygian Nymphs. Once they give him the directions he needs, he then returns the eye and leaves to find the Nymphs. Perseus was given three gifts by the Stygian Nymphs: the cap of Darkness which would make him invisible, a pair of winged sandals which would enable him to fly, and a pouch called a kibesis in which to carry the head of the Gorgon. With the adamantine sickle, a gift from Hermes, and the mirror-like shield lent him by Athena, Perseus was ready to begin his task. The Final Test and Boon He found the Gorgons far away at the ends of the earth. They were asleep. With Athena’s help he sneaked up on them, and, looking at their reflection in Athena’s shield to avoid the petrifying glance, he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa. Perseus placed the snaky-haired head into the kibesis and flew off, escaping from pursuing Gorgon sisters. More Tests and the Sacred Marriage On his way back to Seriphos to deliver his gift to the king, Perseus flew over the land of the Ethiopians. There he saw, chained to a rock, a lovely maiden, Andromeda. It seems that this maiden’s mother, Cassiopeia, had boasted that Andromeda was lovelier than the Nereids, the sea nymphs. As a punishment, the god of the sea, Poseidon, flooded the land and sent Cetus, the sea monsters, to torment the people. The priests of Ammon told the king and the queen that the monster could only be appeased by the sacrifice of their daughter, Andromeda. The maiden had already been chained to the rock as an offering when Perseus flew over. He fell instantly in love with Andromeda so he flew down to bargain with her parents. He promised that he would rid them of the monstrous beast if they would give him Andromeda as his wife. They quickly agreed and even offered to give Perseus half of their kingdom if only he would rescue their daughter. The Roman poet, Ovid, in the Metamorphoses (Book IV) tells the story of the battle between Perseus and the sea-monster. Lo! Just as a swift ship plows through the waves with its sharp beak driven forward by the sweat and strain of its rowers, so the monster came, rolling back the waters as he surged forward. When he approached the cliffs where the maiden was bound, a youth sprang suddenly from the earth high into the clouds. The monster saw the shadow of the hero on the waters and savagely he attacked the shadow. Then, like an eagle, Perseus plunged headlong in a swift dive through the air and attacked the screaming serpent from above, burying his sword (to its hilt) in the monster’s shoulder. The creature reared out of the water, smarting from his wound, then plunged below the waves snorting and roaring like a wild boar. Perseus eluded the fearsome fangs with the help of his winged feet, and then struck again into the barnacled back of the sea-serpent. The beast belched forth waters mixed with blood…but Perseus’ wings grew heavy with the water spray and he landed on a rock projecting from the waters. Holding onto the rock with one hand, he plunged his sharp sword again and again into the monster’s body. The people watching from the cliffs cried out and cheered as the monster slipped into a watery grave. The king and queen called him a savior, and the maiden, freed from her chains, came forth to greet him as his prize and bride. He washed his hands in the waters, and, so that the Gorgon’s head might not be bruised by the rocky shore, he spread out seaweed and laid upon it Medusa’s head. The seaweed, once alive, turned into stone when it absorbed the power of the Gorgon- even to this day it has remained as coral. What was a pliant plant below the sea is turned to stone above. Perseus then built an altar to the gods who had aided him and claimed Andromeda as his bride. Their wedding was joyfully celebrated by all except Phineus, the king’s brother, who had expected to marry Andromeda. He and his followers created a riot in the banquet hall, which Ovid described blow by blow in the beginning of Book V, of the Metamorphoses. The battle was ended only by the removal of the head of the Gorgon from its pouch. To look upon the snaky-locked Medusa was to be turned to stone instantly; the two hundred men with Phineus became two hundred stone statues! Perseus and his bride, Andromeda, returned to the island of Serphos to rescue the hero’s mother. Polydectes refused to free Danae until Perseus presented him with the head of the Gorgon as he had been ordered. When Perseus took the head of Medusa out of the pouch, Polydectes and all his men were turned to stone. Perseus then returned with his bride and his mother to the kingdom of Argos. When the king, Acrisius, heard that Danae and her son had survived and were returning, he fled to Thessaly. Perseus followed him. There the king of Larisa was celebrating funeral games in honor of his dead father. Perseus joined the athletes, and in the discus throw his shot accidentally went astray and hit Acrisius. The oracle that had foretold the death of the king by the hand of his own grandson was fulfilled. Since he had been polluted by the killing of his own kin, Perseus could not rule over Argos. But the king of Tiryns, his cousin, exchanged kingdoms with him and Perseus founded near Tiryns the beautiful city of Mycenae which remains there still.

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