The Hero's Journey In The Odyssey By Martin Luther King Jr.

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The Heroes Journey, identified by American scholar Joseph Campbell, is a pattern of narrative that describes the typical adventure of the main hero, whether that be a fiction or nonfiction hero. The first step is the Call to Adventure, where something shakes up the hero’s current situation and the hero starts experiencing change. Consequently, this theory is also applied to the fictional hero Odysseus in The Odyssey and the real-life hero Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights activist. In The Odyssey, Odysseus embarks on a 10-year voyage from Troy to Ithaca and encounters many monsters along the way including a gigantic Cyclops. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister and a black-rights activist born on January 15, 1929, who led the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s which included events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington. Both in fiction, such as The Odyssey, and real-life heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr. endure aspects of the Heroes Journey. The first step …show more content…

endure aspects of the Heroes Journey. King and Odysseus, while very different people, endure steps of the Heroes Journey like the Call to Adventure and have important elements of the Heroes Journey such as allies and trials. Odysseus refused the call to adventure from Agamemnon by faking insanity. Athena helped Odysseus by disguising him as a beggar to take back his castle. Odysseus used his cunning mind to escape Polyphemus by stabbing him in the eye with a giant stake. Martin Luther King Jr. noticed Rosa Parks refused to change seats and he organized a city-wide bus boycott. King was inspired by Gandhi because of his non-violent protests. King also worked hard for 12 long months to get the buses integrated. There are many other real-life heroes that endure aspects of the Heroes Journey such as Ben Carson and Nelson Mandela. Try and research one that interests

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