munchausen

The Analysis of Baron Munchausen

In the book Signs of Life, the author Linda Seger writes about heroes, and their typical characteristics, that for the most part have always been the same throughout history. Even the word hero is already put in the male tense, suggesting there that most heroes have been and will be males. For the most part Seger’s points are well taken and are backed up mostly by every heroic story I’ve ever read or seen before in my life.

The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen definitely pushes the typical hero envelope, but even still, Seger’s idea of typical hero characteristics shown through in most of this crazy Monty Python type film. Seger explains from the beginning of her article that the hero usually, “begins as a nonhero; innocent, young, simple or humble” (Signs of Life; 318). This observation one finds to be false when it comes to the Baron. She goes on to write in her second point that something happens to heroes “that sets the story in motion” (Signs of Life; 319). Well how can this point be proven wrong if something didn’t get the hero started he would then cease to be hero wouldn’t they. In her third point Seger reports that the hero doesn’t really want to leave where they are, even when they’ve already been asked once. She states that the hero usually, “receives a double call to adventure” (Signs of Life; 319). Asking the hero once for the sake of

2

others isn’t enough, it’s only when it becomes personal the hero takes action. In most journeys the hero “usually receives help” (Signs of Life; 319) and typically gets it mostly from “unusual sources” (Signs of Life; 319). You’ll find that most everything the entire movie of Baron Munchausen is unusual and that the hero himself is just as unusual as the person or moon he is talking to. The final point that I have chosen to analyze from Seger’s writing in Signs of Life, comes from her fifth point. She explains that once the hero is ready to begin the hero “moves into a special world where he or she will change from the ordinary to the extraordinary” (Signs of Life; 319). This is usually the first plot point that sets the story in motion or in our case the Baron on his way.

The idea from Seger that the hero “usually begins as a nonhero” (Signs of Life; 318) doesn’t hold true to this story at all.