Hero journey’s throughout all forms of mythology is common from every culture. Joseph Campbell is an American scholar that specialized in mythology. Mr. Campbell developed a theory he called monomyth. He realized that several hero stories share common themes throughout the stories. Three main functions existed in these stories and are referred to as the departure, initiation and return. There were also several lesser functions within the three major themes of all hero stories. Not all of these stories contain all the functions, but a majority of them contain the three major ones. The 1981 film Clash of the Titans, produced by MGM Studios is a perfect example of Joseph Campbell’s theory on a hero’s journey.
This film is focused on the hero
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Perseus and he is thrown into an adventure unexpectedly when his body is transported to the kingdom of Joppa by the Goddess Thetis. Once in the kingdom, he is presented several gifts by the Gods and told he has to fulfill his destiny by Zeus. Perseus then battles several mythical beasts with the aid of Pegasus, Thallo and a Mechanical owl. At the end of his journey, he rescues the princess Andromeda and marries her. He then begins the king of Joppa and fulfills his destiny. The first theme that will be discussed is the departure for the Hero. This contains a few lesser functions that will also be addressed. The film begins with Perseus and his mother being thrown into a chest and out to see by his mother’s father. He is rescued at Zeus’s request and it is revealed that Perseus is the son of Zeus. Perseus is granted supernatural aid by Zeus to survive his ordeal and grows up in a peaceful land. The Goddess Thetis then transports Perseus to the Kingdom of Joppa because she is jealous of his favor with Zeus. When he awakens, he meets a Greek playwright named Ammon and he acts as a mentor for Perseus throughout various parts of the film. Perseus is confused and does not understand how he ended up in Joppa. At this point Zeus demands that some of the Gods provide gifts to Perseus to assist him in his quest. This is another lesser function of Mr. Campbell’s theory and he refers to it as supernatural aid. Perseus was gifted a sword, shield and helmet, All these gifts serve a purpose during the film and helps Perseus succeed in his quest. Finally Zeus appears to Perseus on the mirrored portion of the shield to tell him that he must fulfill his destiny. He does not provide Perseus with any more information at that point. This is when Perseus crosses the first threshold of the hero journey and moves onto the second theme. The second theme deals with the hero’s initiation, sometimes referred to as the quest.
Perseus does not know what his destiny is so he decides to visit the Kingdom of Joppa. This is where he finds out that Andromeda is the princess of the kingdom and cannot marry a suitor unless they answer her riddle. Perseus falls in love with Andromeda and seeks assistance with solving the riddle. This is when he finds his first animal helper in Pegasus. Pegasus is a flying horse and he uses it to follow the giant vulture that transports Andromeda’s soul to a swamp. Perseus then battles his first beast Calibos, which is a deformed human and the son of the Goddess Thetis. This is essential because this battle leads to Perseus’s ability to solve the riddle. Perseus loses his first gift, the helmet, and cuts of Calibos’s hand. This is how he is able to solve the riddle for Andromeda’s hand in marriage. He solves the riddle when he returns to Joppa but Andromeda’s mother insults the Goddess Thetis and she demands that Andromeda is sacrificed to the Kraken. This is another threshold to the second part of Perseus’s hero journey and continues his initiation. Perseus seeks the aid of the Stygian Witches and they inform him that he must defeat Medusa in order to battle the Kraken. He is once again aided by Ammon, a Greek warrior named Thallo and a mechanical owl called Buba. Perseus eventually defeats Medusa with the shield given to him and this is also sacrificed in the battle. Medusa’s head is …show more content…
the boon that Perseus needs to move on to the third theme of the hero’s journey. The final major theme of the hero Journey deals with the hero’s return with his boon to save Andromeda.
During his return, they are attacked by Calibos and several giant scorpions. During this battle, Perseus manages to kill Calibos but he is exhausted from the battle and cannot continue with his journey to save Andromeda. He sends Buba to find Pegasus to assist him once again with returning to Joppa. At this point of the film, Zeus returns Perseus strength to continue on with his quest to save Andromeda. Eventually Perseus returns in time to save Andromeda from the Kraken. The boon he received from the initiation is used to defeat the Kraken. After the Kraken is defeated, Perseus has fulfilled his destiny and marries Andromeda. He then becomes king of Joppa. In honor of his deeds, Zeus creates several constellations to honor Perseus, Pegasus and Andromeda. This concludes Perseus’s hero
journey. This film embodies the essence of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory. It contains all three major themes of departure, initiation and return. The story also contains numerous lessor functions as well. One can see how Perseus advances through the different stages of his journey and ends with his marriage to Andromeda. Perseus met all the conditions required to be a hero throughout this journey and exemplifies Joseph Campbell’s hero journey theory.
Most myths have a common pattern between them. Today, this pattern is often seen in some of our most beloved motion pictures. Joseph Campbell-a respected 20th century American mythologist, lecturer, and writer- observed this and created a theory based off of the similarities he saw. He showed the world that almost every story with a hero follows the three stages in his theory he called “Monomyth” (Campbell). The monomyth, often times called “The Hero’s Journey” or “The hero with a thousand faces”, includes the departure, initiation, and return stages (Campbell). In these stages the hero leaves his normal life behind, fulfills him/herself in some activity, and returns as a hero (Campbell). These stages can be applied to a smash hit released in 2009, a science-fiction film titled Star Trek. James T. Kirk in Star Trek closely follows Campbell’s theory as he departs from his childhood home in Iowa, fights a rogue Romulan enemy, and returns to Earth as a Starfleet captain.
The settings are the Grey Sisters Place, some place with Athena, island of the Gorgons, Into the air, and Atlas’s island. The settings are different because it has more than Perseus. The events are that Perseus was sent off the quest, He then gets a lot of gifts after that he goes to see the Grey sisters and steals their eye then goes to see Atlas she gives him the hat of darkness. After that goes to Medusa’s cave and he cuts off Medusa’s head, he escapes Medusa's sisters. The event is different because he has a lot of things to do before going and killing medusa and in the poem Perseus he just got a shield and cut her head.
Watching a film, one can easily recognize plot, theme, characterization, etc., but not many realize what basic principle lies behind nearly every story conceived: the hero’s journey. This concept allows for a comprehensive, logical flow throughout a movie. Once the hero’s journey is thoroughly understood, anyone can pick out the elements in nearly every piece. The hero’s journey follows a simple outline. First the hero in question must have a disadvantaged childhood. Next the hero will find a mentor who wisely lays out his/her prophecy. Third the hero will go on a journey, either literal or figurative, to find him/herself. On this journey the hero will be discouraged and nearly quit his/her quest. Finally, the hero will fulfill the prophecy and find his/herself, realizing his/her full potential. This rubric may be easy to spot in epic action films, but if upon close inspection is found in a wide array of genres, some of which are fully surprising.
Walter Winchell once said, “Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.” The movie Remember The Titans gives truth to this quote. Produced in 2000, this movie stars actors such as Denzel Washington, Will Patton and Wood Harris. One may think that this movie is just about football but its depth is so much more. Taking place in Alexandria, Virginia, race mixing is unheard of until 1971 when T.C. Williams High School is established. When the schools are integrated a new football coach is brought in and the community and students are not happy about it, as the new coach is an African American. This movie shows how people overcome adversity and unite as one to achieve a common goal.
Remember the Titans is a film based on the true story of Coach Herman Boone, who tries to integrate a racially divided team. Throughout training camp and the season, Boone and Yoast 's black and white players learn to accept each other, to work together, and that football knows no race. As they learn from each other, Boone and Yoast also learn from them and in turn, the whole town learns from the team, the Titans. Thus, they are prepared to pursue the State Championship and to deal with and some adversity that threatens to effect their season.
The monomyth or also known as the hero 's journey, is found in many different types of stories/myths/movies from around the world, no matter what the culture or setting it is a part of. There are twelve stages in which the hero participates in, where the hero goes on an adventure, is in a decisive crisis, wins a reward and comes out of it a changed or transformed person. Hercules, is a Greek myth and is an American animated film loosely based on Ancient Greco-Roman mythology, Heracles. The story is modernised in the 1997 to a Disney film and follows the hero 's journey structure. The Hunger Games is a Dystopian fiction set in American, is written by Suzanne Collins and also follows the same structure of the hero 's journey. Regardless of the
Remember the Titans is a film from 2000 displaying a true story of a racially divided football team from the 1970s. The movie highlights the relationships of the black and white people, and how they learned to interact with each other in a time when this was not the way of life. It brings up a number of questions throughout, of what is right and what is wrong, and really challenges the characters, making it a very interesting movie to watch. I have seen this movie many times, and each time I feel like I get something new out of it. It is a movie that can be used as a teaching tool, it does a great job of interpreting not only what was happening in the United States of America at that time, but social psychology concepts through real life situations.
Aegus, Theseus’s father, commands him to go to Athens. Theseus becomes determined to choose the perilous land passage from the peloponnesus across the Isthmus of corinth to Athens and had to face different types of enemies. “Theseus made land travel safe between Troezen and Athens and earned fame and honour”(Roseberg & Baker 246). Theseus confidence not only allows him to accomplish finishing the dangerous passage, he also made two easy ways to get there. Perseus meets a beautiful girl name Andromeda. Andromeda explains how the lord of the sea sends a ravenous sea monster upon their land. “I will rescue your daughter, in return Andromeda will be my wife” (206). Perseus was confident that he would defeat the monster. Knowing that her life would have had to be sacrificed, Perseus was confident in his abilities and is aware of his own strength which leads him to be positive in the defeat of the monster. Although Perseus is
Some have stated that he used Medusa’s head and turned Cetus to stone, others have him slaying the monster with his sword. While battling the monster, it is said that a few drops of the Gorgon’s blood fell into the thrashing waves hence creating the coral reefs. In exchange for defeating the creature, like in most myths, Perseus sought for Andromeda’s hand in marriage. She willingly agreed, and reluctantly her parents did as well, for Andromeda was previously betrothed to her uncle, Phineas. The scheming queen Cassiopeia went behind Andromeda’s back and told Andromeda’s previously betrothed about Perseus. Phineas appeared at the happy couple’s wedding with a few of his friends and attack Perseus, but Perseus anticipated this and drew the Gorgon head turning Phineas’ men to stone. Andromeda and Perseus returned to his kingdom which he had been banished from when he was just a babe because of a prophecy. Perseus ended up accidentally killing his father and he became king. In a few places, It is mentioned that the famed demigod Heracles is a descendant of Andromeda and Perseus. When they died, Athena put them in the stars next to each other. In Astronomy, occasionally the constellation of Cassiopeia will be upside down and the cause of this is said to be Athena punishing
Perseus was born to Danae and the Greek god Zeus. Acrisius, the father of Danae, was told by the oracle of Apollo that Danae’s son would kill him. After finding out that Danae had her son, Perseus, Acrisius shut Perseus and Dane up in a large chest cast the chest out to sea. After a while out in the sea, they landed on the island of Seriphos, where they were saved by the king Polydectes’s brother, Dictys. Polydectes, after hearing about Danae, wanted her to marry him. In order to get rid of Perseus, so that no one would be able to stop him from marrying Danae, Polydectes came up with a plan. He pretended to be marrying the daughter of one of his friends and required everyone to bring him a wedding gift. Polydectes knew that Perseus, being very poor, would arrive empty-handed. Perseus vowed that he could bring Polydectes anything that he wanted and so Polydectes demanded Perseus to bring him the head of the gorgon Medusa, hoping that he would be killed. Perseus set off on his adventure to kill Medusa and while stopping to rest one night in an unknown land, Perseus realized how hopeless the adventure seemed to be. “Gorgons were horrible, instead of hair they had black serpents that writhed on their head, they had brazen hands that could...
Joseph Campbell was a well known mythology teacher who spent his whole life trying to understand the different types of stories that are told. To Campbell “all humans are involved in a struggle to accomplish the adventure of the hero in their own lives.” He made a list of stages that every hero goes through, and sums it up to three sections: separation (the departure), the initiation, and the return.
The myth is a rather interesting one, as it starts off with the King of Argos, Acrisius, travels to the Oracle of Delphi and is told that his daughter will have a son who is destined to kill him. He takes extreme measures to make sure that doesn’t come true and locks his daughter, Danae, inside a tower so that she has no way to conceive. It is almost like an overprotective father in current times, where they never let their daughters go anywhere or be anywhere near boys. However, just like an overprotective father, you can’t always keep your eye on your daughter 24/7, so of course chaos erupts. Zeus, who has been unfaithful to his wife Hera for quite a while now, is unfaithful again when he spots Danae through a portal of her ceiling. He transforms into a shower of gold (again we see the color gold incorporated in a Greek myth) and has sex with her, and thus, Perseus is conceived. Eventually Acrisius finds out about the baby, and locks both Danae and Perseus in a chest and throws it into the sea.
Meanwhile, in the movie version of the story, in the city of Joppa, Calibos the son of the sea goddess Thetis is supposed to marry the Princess Andromeda. But Calibos makes Zeus angry by killing all his flying horses except for one called Pe...
Hades shows himself to Perseus and with the rage of what Hades has done to Perseus, Perseus grabs a lighnting bolt from his sword and throws it at Hades sending him back to the underworld. Saving Andromeda and she offered to make him king and he had refused. Zeus asked if he wanted to join him in Olympus but refused and requested to stay a demi-god but Zeus granted him Io as a companion. In the story according to the Greeks Danae is the daughter of King Acrisius. When he had them put in a box and thrown into the ocean and saved by the fisherman named Dictys they both were still alive and Danae ended up falling in love with Dictys and they were married. Dictys’ brother King Polydectes wanted to take Danae as his wife, Perseus hearing the news he offered to pay any price for his mother not to marry King Polydectes. Sense Polydectes was afraid of Perseus he quickly made an offer that he will allow his mother to stay married to Dictys, only if he brings back the head of Medusa. Bravely, Perseus accepted his