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Elements of the hero's journey
Elements of the hero's journey
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The Joy Luck Club Essay
If you saved someone’s life, the people would praise you as a hero. Heroes appear in just about anywhere in the world whether in books, stories, or even our lives today. If you asked a child who are their heroes, they would most likely say a character's name like Spiderman or sometimes their parents. “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself,” Joseph Campbell told Bill Moyers during a six-hour PBS series. After many theories and studies, Joseph Campbell, author and professor of literature, deciphered a pattern in almost every hero’s story and developed a cycle called the hero’s journey. In his book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, even though there are twelve stages, Campbell
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outlines the three main stages of the hero’s journey which is the departure, the initiation, and the return. During his talk with Moyers, Campbell explains that a hero can perform two types of deeds, physical or spiritual deeds. “The purpose of the usual hero adventure is to recover what had been lost or discover life-giving elixir,” he said. With this in mind, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club characters, Lindo and Waverly Jong, sets the perfect example of what Joseph Campbell described what is a hero. To begin, Lindo Jong is the mother of Waverly in book, The Joy Luck Club. At the beginning of her life, this hero experiences the first few stages of the hero’s journey in which she was bounded to an arranged marriage and from that point on, her “ordinary world” was disrupted. Lindo’s call to adventure, also known as the departure, started when she was forced to Hoang 2 live with Huang’s and separate from her family. This character goes through great distress and lives the life of servitude at the Huang’s. Many trials or challenges continued to face her way until the day of her wedding where she experienced “the abyss”, the greatest challenge the hero will face or death itself. “ I began to cry and thought bitterly about my parents' promise. I wondered why my destiny had been decided, why I should have an unhappy life so someone else could have a happy one” she said before the wedding (Tan 45). Lindo enters the “resurrection” stage in which she immediately escapes the abyss telling herself , “I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. . . . And then I draped the large embroidered red scarf over my face and covered these thoughts up. But underneath the scarf I still knew who I was. I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents’ wishes, but I would never forget myself”, thus, causes her to transform using this revelation as a key to her survival throughout her entire journey (Tan 45). Soon after, Lindo is pulled back to the abyss and was successful in resurrecting again. For example, after the gold and jewelry were taken off, it allowed her to “feel free and think independently” in which she goes through the transformation. In this case, Lindo enters into the return stage after finally escaping her marriage without breaking her parent’s promise and traveled to America. In addition, Waverly Jong fits into the hero’s journey as much as her mother does. Waverly is an ordinary Chinese-American girl until one day her brother, Vincent, receives a chess game as a Christmas present which is her call to adventure. She self-taught herself chess and learns more strategies from her mentor, Lau Po, which helps her in the trials or tournaments Hoang 3 she goes through.
In the chapter, “The Rules Of The Game”, Waverly enters the abyss including her magical touch at winning chess when her mother, Lindo, keeps silent after the argument they had at the supermarket. Afterwards, Waverly consistently lost her chess matches resulting in the end of her career as a chess champion and the discontinued communication with her mother. Throughout her own life, she spent it in the abyss until the day she decided that she wanted to tell her mother about her engagement to Rich but has difficulty trying. "You don't know my mother," I said. "She never thinks anybody is good enough for anything." (Tan 280). This shows that Waverly knows how her mother is and doesn’t believe that Rich will be acceptable. An example of the abyss in Waverly’s chapter is “I was despairing over this latest failure, made worse by the fact that Rich seemed blind to it all. He looked so pathetic. So pathetic, those words! My mother was doing it again, making me see black where I once saw white. In her hands, I always became the pawn. I could only run away. And she was the queen, able to move in all directions, relentless in her pursuit, always able to find my weakest spots.” (Tan 293 ). Finally, she hits the return stage when she finally confesses that she’s getting married even though Lindo already knew that and comes back with the “prize” of communication with her
mother. To conclude, all heroes go through the same cycle called the Hero’s Journey created by Joseph Campbell. During his Q&A interview with Moyers, he defined what a hero, the type of deeds performed, and the main purpose of any hero’s adventure. Throughout The Joy Luck Club, Lindo and Waverly Jong were called to a life journey and had their ups and downs with the trials. Hoang 4 Both characters had persistently fallen into the abyss, but recovered and succeeded by returning with either improved communication and a happy ending proving that they do fit Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey.
Some people are born to be heroes. Some people may be forgotten heroes. Some people are born not to be heroes at all. In ways they are similar and in some ways they are different. John Campbell’s Hero’s Journey Monomyth shows the certain stages that a hero would traditionally go through to be qualified as a hero. Elie Wiesel is not a monomyth hero, because he does not follow the correct steps and does not hit enough steps to be considered a monomythic hero.
Every hero goes through a journey of their own according to Joseph Campbell in which he calls “The Hero’s Journey” . In the book The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing Mei Woo or June embarks on a journey into finding herself beginning with her mother’s past ,which reflects how she transforms into a better person as a daughter. Along the way, June encounters many allies that guides her with the memories that her mother, Suyuan Woo, had left behind. She deals with inner conflicts and struggled to overcome them because she doubted her abilities which were results of her previous failures. After conquering her doubts through memories of her mother’s lessons, June sees her life in a different point of view. As she fought her way through the hindrances
Humanity has created this “universal story” of what a hero is, or at least the myth of it, time and again. Different tasks and encounters with a variety of villains all lead the hero to the prize, to a new life (Seger). This person deemed the hero is as ordinary as the next but what makes them different is the drastic test that they must face. Individuals admire this character because the hero stands for something, something bigger than themselves. Whether it be the compassionate act of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games or the death of the oldest brother in Brother Bear, as an outsider, an individual sees the human side of these heroes and relates. Connor Lassiter from Unwind by Neal Shusterman is an ideal example of the myth due to the
The word "hero" is so often used to describe people who overcome great difficulties and rise to the challenge that is set before them without even considering the overwhelming odds they are up against. In our culture, heroes are glorified in literature and in the media in various shapes and forms. However, I believe that many of the greatest heroes in our society never receive the credit that they deserve, much less fame or publicity. I believe that a hero is simply someone who stands up for what he/she believes in. A person does not have to rush into a burning building and save someone's life to be a hero. Someone who is a true friend can be a hero. A hero is someone who makes a difference in the lives of others simply by his/her presence. In Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, the true heroes stand out in my mind as those who were true friends and fought for what they believed in. These men and women faced the atrocities of war on a daily basis, as explained by critic David R. Jarraway's essay, "'Excremental Assault' in Tim O'Brien: Trauma and Recovery in Vietnam War Literature" and by Vietnam Veteran Jim Carter. Yet these characters became heroes not by going to drastic measures to do something that would draw attention to themselves, but by being true to their own beliefs and by making a difference to the people around them.
An Analysis of the Ten Stages of the Hero’s Journey in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces
What’s a hero? A hero is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities. Hero’s can also be someone who has made a change in the world and or a society like Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks is considered a hero because of all the things she went through and made happen throughout her life. There were many journeys and obstacles that she faced to make things the way they are now. This ties into “Joseph Campbell’s stages of the hero’s journey”. Due to some of the decisions that Mrs. Parks made eventually caused her to go through some of the stages of “Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey”. Her stages of the hero’s journey include The Ordinary World, The Call to Adventure, Test, Enemies, Allies,
Who is a hero? In contemporary times, usage of the term has become somewhat of a cliché. Over the years, the term “hero” has become representative of a wide variety of individuals, each possessing differing traits. Some of the answers put forth by my colleagues (during our in-class discussion on heroism) as to whom they consider heroes pointed to celebrities, athletes, teachers and family members. Although the occupations differed, each of their heroes bore qualities that my classmates perceived as extraordinary, whether morally or physically. Nonetheless, Webster’s defines “hero” as “a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities.” Thus, it is worth considering that individuals become heroes relative to the situation with which they’re faced.
On a train in China, June feels that her mother was right: she is becoming Chinese, even though she never thought there was anything Chinese about her. June is going with her father to visit his aunt, who he hasn't seen since he was ten. Then, in Shanghai, June will meet her mother's other daughters. When a letter from them had finally come, Suyuan was already dead--a blood vessel had burst in her brain. At first, Lindo and the others wrote a letter telling the other sisters that Suyuan was coming. Then June convinced Lindo that this was cruel, so Lindo wrote another letter telling them Suyuan was dead. In the crowded streets of China, June feels like a foreigner. She is tall--her mother always told her that she might have gotten this from her mother's father, but they would never know, because everyone in the family was dead. Everyone died when a bomb fell during the war. Suddenly June's father's aunt comes out of the crowd. She recognizes him from a photograph he sent. June meets the rest of the family, having trouble remembering any words in Cantonese. They all go to a hotel, which June assumes must be very expensive but turns out to be cheap. The relatives are thrilled by how fancy it all is. They want to eat hamburgers in the hotel room. In the shower, June wonders how much of her mother stayed with those other daughters. Was she always thinking about them? Did she wish June was them? Later, June listens while her father talks with his aunt. He says that he never knew Suyuan was looking for her daughters her whole life. Her father tells her that her name, Jing-mei, means, "little sister, the essence of the others." June asks for the whole story of how her mother lost her other daughters. Her father tells her that though her mother hoped to trade her valuables for a ride to Chungking to meet her husband, no one was accepting rides. After walking for a long time, Suyuan realized she could not go on carrying the babies, so she left them by the side of the road and wrote a note, saying that if they were delivered to a certain address, the deliverer would be rewarded greatly. She got very sick with dysentery, and Canning met her in a hospital. She said to him, "Look at this face.
There are many stories that follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, and tells the tale of a Heroic character. These fables introduces us to heroes that begin their journey in an ordinary place, then receive a call to enter an unknown world full of bizarre powers and peculiar events. These heroes often display great traits, such as bravery or intelligence, that defines their character. One of these heroic's tales is Haroun and the Sea of Stories, telling the adventures of a young man named Haroun. This essay will prove that Haroun from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie is a hero, because he possess heroic qualities. Haroun shows his heroic qualities by overcoming obstacles, helping his friends, and having good intentions.
The definition of a hero can vary from one person to another, depending on the qualities they believe a hero should possess, but to be a hero you must to go through a hero’s journey. A hero’s journey is described as a monomyth cycle of stages a hero completes to have a successful return. According to Joseph Campbell, the leading mythologist and author of the famous book, The Hero with A Thousand Faces, a hero’s journey is simply a cycle of a coming and a returning. Campbell’s theory has been used in a large variety of movies, portraying a hero’s journey, sometimes even with a twist. The movie Iron Man conveys a hero’s journey with a partial twist since he’s an unconventional modern hero. Although Iron Man displays a different perspective on the hero’s journey, it follows the steps called, “Status quo”, “Tests and Trials”, and “The Ordeal” of Campbell’s theory. In doing so, the movie expressed the message that great things can be achieved through risk-taking and hard work.
Heroes are found everywhere in the world. They are seen in movies, on television, in books, and in reality. A hero can be anyone, from a friend to a fictional character. To be considered a hero, one must make selfless sacrifices, develop and learn, overcome challenges and temptations, and ultimately present their known world with a gift of any kind. Homer’s
In The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, one examines the story of four Chinese
This eventually leads to Waverly’s downfall when she decides to quit playing chess. As an adult, Waverly doesn’t overcome her issues with her mother, “After our miserable lunch, I gave up the idea that there would ever be a good time to tell her the news that Rich Schields and I were getting married” (Tan 167). This quote displays Waverly’s inability to trust and connect with her mother as she grows older. While spending time with her mother at home, Waverly does succeed in recognizing her mother’s importance and true intentions, she states, “In the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was really there: an old woman, a work of her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in” (Tan 184). The following quote signifies Waverly’s psychological transformation in her journey as she successfully recognizes her mother’s affection and stops confusing her actions with personal attacks.
In movies, novels, and life, people are named as heroes. The heroes we establish and the heroes we recognize, however, may not meet the criteria for a mythic hero. A mythic hero ventures forth on his journey, and comes forth from the hero’s path to greatness. Joseph Campbell, a mythologist who studied many of the great human myths and religious tales, realized, in studying these myths and tales, that there were certain steps that every hero went through. Campbell called this “The Hero’s Journey”; it is based on Carl Jung's idea that all human beings have an archetype. After Campbell studied a lot of the great myths and realized this pattern, he published his findings in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Ever since then, authors have used “The Hero’s Journey” as an outline to tell their stories. “It is important to note that not all of these individual steps are present in every hero’s tale, nor is it important that they be in this exact order” (Vogler 20). The Hero with a Thousand Faces gives a sense of significance as it looks into the inner mind and soul. The author, Joseph Campbell, performs two extraordinary accomplishments: compelling his readers that myth and dream, those are the most effective and everlasting forces in life and a unification of mythology and psychoanalysis with a gripping narrative. One well-known example of “The Hero’s Journey” from popular culture is the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling. In the novel, Harry Potter, the main character, is the chosen one and “The Hero’s Journey” applies to his life from the moment he is attacked by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a baby.
There is another type of hero that almost no one is aware of. In the poorest areas of the country, live mostly minorities and other ethic background. All their lives they’ve been expected to work harder and expected not succeed in life. Some individuals living in poverty with a determination to succeed work hard all of their lives to become what everybody doubted they could. Escaping the crime, drugs, and prostitution is enough to escape hell, even if they don’t go to college. Despite of their financial problems, drug and crime surroundings, or difficulties in the language skills, their desire to triumph fuels their persistence. Those who make it to success are the few living examples of the purest form of hero anyone can be. They are not only their own heroes but also the heroes of the poor children who dream of becoming like them someday.