Posts

Who is the Hero in As I Lay Dying

 The role of the Hero in As I Lay Dying is difficult to identify, and as such the framework of the Hero's Journey is hard to decipher within As I Lay Dying. Because of Faulkner's emphasis on mobile perspective, stream-of-consciousness interior monologue, fragmentation, and nonlinear plotting, the narrative jumbles the chronology of events and distorts/omits developments in the story. While the story at times uses the character of Darl as an omniscient narrator, it can be challenging to determine what is being told from his perspective and what is being relayed as fact. Because of this, it is difficult to determine what is fact and what is Darl's own opinion. Despite this, I believe that, through the little unbiased information we are given, we can make an argument that the hero is one of Darl, Addie, or Anse. The first and strongest argument for the Hero in As I Lay Dying is Darl. Darl is both an important member of the Bundren family as well as the narrator of the story. D...
4 comments
Read more

How Wonder Woman follows the Heroine's journey

 Wonder Woman is probably the most popular female superhero in the present day. Both in her role as a member of the justice league and in her solo adventures as an Amazon warrior and princess. So, it's natural to analyze the 2017 Wonder Woman film through the lens of the heroine's journey. In this blogpost I will look at how Wonder Woman fits Victoria Lynn Schmidtt's heroine's journey. The movie starts off with Wonder Woman's, aka Diana's, mom explaining to her why the Amazons exist. They were created by the Olympic Gods to protect humanity. She also explains that Ares, the god of war, got jealous of humanity and tried to destroy them. He ended up killing every god except for Zeus, who was strong enough temporarily stop Ares. He also left behind a weapon strong enough to kill Ares if he ever returns. This ends the exposition, and we are transported to 1918 where we see idyllic Amazonian life. The women here train but there isn't any threat of violence, rathe...
7 comments
Read more

Thinking about Maureen Murdock's version of the Heroine's journey

 Maureen Murdock's heroines journey seemed to receive a very negative reaction from our class. Some people complained that the heroines journey focused too much on the protagonist's gender compared to the hero's journey; a journey actually focused on the hero being heroic. Others criticized it by saying that the focus on gender actually contributes to the sexism within storytelling. Men are allowed to go off on heroic journeys but women are required to constantly consider their gender and how it effects him. Many more of the steps of the heroine's journey are explicitly gendered while the hero's journey allows for more creativity and freedom for it's protagonist. But while I do agree with some of these criticisms, I think that Maureen Murdock's version of the Heroine's journey is more tailored to the generation before us.   In Maureen Murdock's book The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness, she lists examples of how woman growing up...
4 comments
Read more

How Star Wars perfectly constructs a compelling Call to Adventure

 The Hero's journey is a very flexible template and outline for a fictional narrative. While the complete version as written by Joseph Campbell is capable of being used 1-for-1 to tell a complete story, certain parts can be swapped with each other and even discarded to better fit a specific story.  However, one part of the hero's journey is essential to any story starting from the beginning. And that element is the Call to Adventure. Without the call to adventure, there would be no adventure. Starting off with a compelling motivation for the hero is important both so that the hero feels some sense of urgency as well as hooking the audience in to keep them engaged. And Star Wars succeeds on both fronts to perfectly craft a call to adventure. We begin in a scene of action. Princess Leia's ship is under attack and about to be fully taken over. Most of her guards have been captured or killed and she herself is nearly surrounded. A dark figure has emerged on Leia's ship, cle...
5 comments
Read more