Developing a New Major

christopher vogler – The writer’s journey – based on the hero’s journey by Joseph Campbell “The Hero with a Thousand Face” that identifies timeless patterns from mythology – this author says using hero’s journey is good tool for analyzing problems in stories and to create stories that will ring true with audience and be entertaining, also good as a guide to life in general, book uses lots of movies as examples, good for class discussion

similar to Jung’s archetypes = constantly appearing characters, representing different aspects of human personaltiy/psychology, from the human collective unconsciousness

he says there are 12 stages of the hero’s journey – it’s a framework that hte author has to flesh out, steps could be in different orders – Act 1 (separation): ordinary world, call to adventure (inciting incident), refusal of the call, meeting with the mentor, Act 2a (a descent): crossing the first threshold, tests/allies/enemies approach to the inmost cave, central ordeal (midpoint, death, rebirth), Act 2b (initiation): reward (seizing the sword), Act 3 (return): the road back, resurrection (climax), return with the elixir (denoument) — not an iron class framework, works for modern stories as well as mythology and comic books, life experiences are universal, framework is flexible

ordinary world – where the story starts the mundane daily world,r egular life, story is gonna take them out of the mundane and into something new (fish out of water stories), gotta show the regular world tho so people can see what’s special about the next world (think wizard of oz where Kansas is dull and filmed in black and white and Oz is exciting and filmed in color – vivid difference

call to adventure – some problem or challenge facing the hero (think princess leia’s holographic cry for help to Luke in Star Wars), might be a wrong that needs to be righted, or a client bringing a new case to a private eye/policeman, call to adventure has to make clear what hte hero’s goal will be – save the planet, get the girl, catch the bad guy

refusal of the call (the reluctant hero) – the hero stops right at the “threshold of adventure” – fear, pain of earlier relationships, family responses, takes outside effort to get him over that threshold – push from amentor, time, change in circumstances (think Luke’s uncle and Aunt getting killed before he went off with obi wan), the problem becomes more personal

mentor – like Merlin with King Arthur, stands for bond between parent and child, teacher and student, god and man, shows up in lots of different forms (wizard, boss, crusty wise men, the good witch in Oz), mentor’s job = get hero ready to face the unknown, train them, get them good at magic skills, the mentor never goes all the way with hte hero so the hero has to be ready to go it alone – good mentor gets them ready to do that

crossing the first threshold – the point between act 1 and 2, hero overcomes his fear and decides to attack the problem head on and enters the special world (which could just be another city like in Beverly Hills Cop when hero goes from Detroit to HOllywood)

tests/allies/enemies – hero learns the rules in the special world, in westerns hero often ends up in a saloon where he has to fight enemies and prove his worth that helps him find allies, ally might be a love interest, Dorothy pals along with scarecrow, tinman and lion, not necessarily just one round of tests – luke had to undergo lots of tests in star wars

approach to the inmost cave – all the efforts to get ready to enter the most dangerous place in the special world, the object of hte quests is usually hidden here/held prisoner here, could be the land of the dead, the wicked witch’s castle, the temple of doom in indiana jones

the ordeal – hero faces possibility of death, audience left in tension of whether hero will die or not because we identify with the hero and what happens to him happens to us emotionally, like Jonah being in the belly of the whale , ordeal could be torture, someone being tough on the hero and trying to make the hero quit, might be the death of the relationship (a temporary death), there has to be a moment in which the hero appears to die so he can be reborn (and changed) and where the audience can be excited again – think roller coasters – the big dips make ya feel as if you’re going to die and then there’s the relief of the uphill slowdown

reward (seizing the sword) – reward coulod be a special weapon or the Grail or sme magic spell/elixir, could be knowledge and experience, may settle problems with parents/family (talks about shapeshifters here but now sure why – women often seen as shapeshifters, also vampires and werewolves) – having gone thru the ordealthe person learns how better to deal with the shapeshifters

the road back – start of act 3 – evil forces can still attack again, especially if there are revengeful spirits stirred up when the reward was grabbed, like when luke and leia pursuied by darth vadar after escaping from teh death star or ET and Elliott escaping from the FBI

resurrection – to be cleansed of the actions inthe special world, could be a second death experience where evil gets in one last shot, returns to the ordinary world a better person with new insights, Axl Foley comes back with a respect for cooperation

return with the elixir – trip to the special world is meaningless if they don’t come back with the elixir/the magic necessary to save the ordinary world – dorothy comes back knowing she’s loved and there’s no place like home, ET comes home with the experience of dealing with humans, if nothing brogut back then the hero has to redo the journey

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Joseph Campbell, Myth, Myths and Folktales