Free Shrek Essays: The Hero's Journey

The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is a genre of text that describes the adventures of the archetypal character “The Hero”. The Hero’s Journey is a narrative that was identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell. Two narratives that clearly represents and show the typical story line of The Hero’s Journey are The Hobbit, By J.R. Tolkien and Shrek, By Ted Elliot, both of these stories conduct of the archetypal character “The Hero” starting as a mediocre person and getting a challenge set for them before they set off to overcome the challenge and on this journey they learn valuable skills and return from the journey with a new way of looking at life.

The hero’s journey has a monomyth a wheel that consists of 12 sections that help to

create a well-structured narrative that contains drama, thrill, suspense and development, however there is three sections that are significant and are important because they bring the whole story together and keep the reader captivated. These three sections include The Refusal, The Approach and The Mentor Helper.
The Refusal
The Refusal is typically at the beginning of the story and generally happens after ‘The Hero’ has been confronted with a challenge that he/she has to face to be able to collect their reward.

What typically happens in the refusal is that the character, or mentor in some cases, isn’t sure on whether they want to take up this challenge or not. In the movie Shrek the refusal runs slightly different compared to how it does in The Hobbit because ‘the mentor’ is the one who is trying to talk their way out of the challenge. As Shrek and donkey embark on their journey to the palace to rescue princess Fiona for Lord Farquaad and in return Shrek can have his swamp back, the refusal occurs when they are walking through a field of sunflowers and donkey is trying to tell Shrek that it is not a very good idea. Donkey states to Shrek “So let me get this straight you’re only going to rescue this princess, so you can get your swamp back from Farquaad?” he then backs himself up again by saying “I don’t know Shrek I think it would be easier to just pull some ogre stuff on them [to get his swamp back]”. The refusal in The Hobbit is when bilbo says to “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you”. Here Bilbo made it clear to Gandalf that he did not want to go on any ‘journey’s’ and he refuses to accept Gandalf’s offer. The refusal plays an important in ‘The Hero’s’ development because the hero must overcome a mind block before they can continue onto the journey, when Bilbo rejects Gandalf’s

offer it is because he does not think he can handle an adventure like what Gandalf proposed.

The Approach
The Approach is very important in the development of ‘The Hero’ because to have the ability to be able to approach things in a sensible manner can take a role in whether ‘The Hero’ will be able to overcome the challenge. The Approach often comes in the lead up to a climatic event in the story where danger may be lurking. The approach in Shrek is when he and donkey go to save princess Fiona from the castle that is guarded by a dragon. The approach in The Hobbit is at the stage where Bilbo enters the cave and encounters Smaug, the dragon, for the first time. The Approach is a very important part in the development of ‘The Hero’ because this is where things such as setbacks occur causing the character to have to find a new approach to overcome the challenge therefore enabling ‘The Hero’ to develop and grow as a character.