...Construction of the Hero Cara O’Keefe The construction of the ‘Hero’ is one every writer should consider. The hero or protagonist is designed to keep the narrative moving and whose actions create progress for the plot (Morrow et al, 1997). Pearson (2001, p. 101) defines hero’s as “fearless protagonists who realise their own special power and go on to take great personal risks in order to change their reality. In day-to-day life, these powerful archetypes provide a structure that can release the ability of ordinary people to rise to challenges, take risks, break rules, and transform their lives”. There are many ways of defining what a hero is and what a protagonist is. A hero is usually the protagonist but this is not always the case and vice versa. For clarification purposes within this analysis a protagonist or hero is a character who drives the narrative and plot and who embarks upon a learning journey that changes them. A writer’s construction of the hero will Is this Essay helpful? Join OPPapers to read more and access more than 325,000 just like it! get better grades be analysed using examples from Kate Grenville’s Lilian’s Story, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Stephen King’s Carrie in comparison to Joseph Campbell’s (1949, p. 36) “destiny of Everyman” by firstly illuminating who the hero’s and protagonist’s are, how the character of the hero has been portrayed and how their journey’s compare. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code construction of the hero is by no...
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...Is a life lost when kept within boundaries? For Sherman Alexie the answer is yes. He is a Spokane Indian and also a prominent writer. He is the author of “Superman and Me” a short essay first published in Los Angeles Times, April 19 1998, as part of the series “The Joy of Reading and Writing”. In this piece Alexie describes how he taught himself how to read at the age of three and how he manage to literally read his way out of the reservation in which he grew up. By narrating his own story, he illustrates how few were the chances for him as well as for all young Indians in a reservation to succeed in life, not only because of poverty or because of the limited school system, but more precisely because of the mental barriers Indians have imposed themselves when exposed to the challenges of the Non-Indian society. In contrast to this panorama, and against all statistics and predictions, Alexie succeeded...
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...This essay will use the mythological criticism approach to compare two stories, “A Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, and “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner by showing that both stories have similar archetypes embedded within their narratives. By definition and according to our text, archetypes are “characters, images and themes that symbolically embody meanings and experiences,” (2059, Meyer). In both of these stories, I see that the main characters are involved in a quest for feminine self-discovery and freedom of the human spirit. In Joseph Campbell’s, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” the author discusses the journey we are called to in life, and that some choose to follow that call while others do not. In this case, both female characters choose not to answer the call, and become trapped in their initial wounding. The both feel they have no power to move out of their current state. In Carol Pearson’s book, “The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By,” six major archetypes are discussed. They include the orphan, the innocent, the magician, the wanderer, the warrior and the altruist. All of these archetypes can also have shadow sides, as described by author Pearson. In my opinion, the archetype that best fits Mrs. Mallard, the main character of “A Story of an Hour,” by Chopin and Miss Emily Grierson, the main character of “A Rose for Miss Emily,” by Faulkner, is the orphan archetype and its shadow side. Mrs. Mallard is a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage...
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...Whittaker, Helene. (1995) Renowned professor of classical Archeology and Ancient History at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Helene whittaker is known for mainly being concerned with the Greek Bronze age. She wrote about the Gender role in The Odyssey, specifically focusing on the women's role and how women's treatment by men can be indicated as sexist. They are usually identified by their looks and treated based on how their physical appearance is, and whether they have power over any men. She makes it clear that throughout Odysseus’ journey to the underworld, he spots and gets a glimpse of different variety of women. She says that throughout the Odyssey, they do not state anything about the women’s accomplishments in their lifetime, but only about their important son's, good looks and pleasingness, and their affairs with gods. She also talks about how women are known for their action and activity towards their sons and husbands, but never for the action and deeds of their own, or how they are, nor what accomplishments they did for themselves. Helene states that it seems in the book Odyssey, the only achievements women could achieve was being pretty and attractive to they eyes of the men. She proves throughout her paper that even Homer made it sound as...
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...condensed, narrative. A novel can indulge in slow plot development but the short story must immediately delve into the drama. The short story needs to progress quickly from conflict or crisis, to climax and subsequent resolution. Secondly, the short story must have an affable or at least relatable protagonist as the primary character. If the reader can recognize the ‘hero’, empathize with their plight, or emotionally connect with their journey, the short story remains intriguing. This essay, using examples from two classic short stories, illustrates how narrative and character development is intrinsic to a good short story. James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, begins with “I read it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again” (37). The mystery of what the narrator read immediately draws the reader in and an engrossing plot unfolds quickly. A series of recollections and flashbacks reveal the internal conflict of the narrator as he struggles with his family obligation to his drug-addicted brother. An argument between the brothers is the climactic moment as angst gives way to anger and frustration. There is almost a moment of suspense before the narrator hears Sonny play at the club for the first time. The conclusion of the short story implies a resolution of the conflict, as the narrator seems to finally understand his brother through his music. This short story is engaging because Baldwin’s narrative is complex...
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...Often noir films used voice-over narration from a private detective, an insurance agent, a writer, a veteran of the war, murderers and even killed, as in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Surprisingly, this insight of the criminal’s mind made it possible for the audience to sympathise with the protagonist. Despite refusing to give the audience a moral role-model, noirs depict the anti-hero instead of a traditional hero. However what makes the protagonist identifiable among the putrescent people of the noir world is that we get an insight to his...
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...and monsters lurk through the night. In the centuries before mass literacy there were few stories of any literal value, bards told classic stories to fill the time. Most of these archaic texts, including classics such as The Odyssey and Beowulf, were solely remembered through verbal retellings, told from the point of the narrator. In these stories a valiant hero, like Beowulf or Odysseus, must vanquish a beast and complete a journey. The audience in enraptured by the linear sequential story and desire to be akin to these amazing heroes. When telling the story from an outside perspective the hero is placed upon a pedestal and glorified, this was the original literature. As time progresses and people have the ability to transcribe their ideas and stories onto the pages creating beautiful worlds with words; the narrator shifted from an outside observer to a first person account of the story which could only happen to the protagonist. Jane Eyre, about a...
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...suggest balance and to present pairs of ideas of equal value. 3. Use complex sentence to emphasize the most important ideas and to subordinate less important ideas. 4. Avoid "empty" sentence frames that say little or restate the obvious. 5. Use present tense when referencing details in a literary work except for passages written in the past tense. 6. Incorporate short, key quoted phrases into analytical sentences. 7. Avoid the use of such words and phrases as "you" and "the reader" that often lead to wordiness. 8. Avoid the phrase, "In conclusion," when opening the concluding paragraph. 9. Avoid gratuitous complements and superlatives. Paragraph Development 1. Use Pattern 1 paragraph frames for most paragraphs in the body of academic essays. 2. Begin body paragraphs with claims as topic sentences that repeat key concepts from the thesis sentence. 3. Always introduce the speaker, context, and/or significance of block quotations. 4. Always follow block quotations with a response that clarifies the significance of the quoted passage. 5. Avoid lengthy quotations. 6. Use a balanced reference to the readings of a text, including combinations of allusions, paraphrases, summaries, and quotations. 7. Enhance the discussion of the topic sentence with both primary development (explanation of the main idea in the topic sentence) and...
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...IS NOVEL? A Novel is prose narrative of considerable length and some complexity that deals imaginatively (fictional) with human experiences (near to life) through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Previously it was known as fictional narrative or narrative prose. ( A Narrative opens “in media res”. This means it opens usually with the hero at his lowest point “in the middle of things”, earlier portions of the story appear later as flashbacks..) Main characterstics of novels are theme, plot or setting, structure, action or events in a sequence, strong characterization and expressive language. The genre of extended prose fiction or narrative fictional prose i.e. novel is rooted in the tradition of medieval "romances" or the heroic romance in prose. The term ‘roman or romance’ linked fictions back to the histories that had appeared in the Romance language of 11th and 12th-century southern France. The typical Arthurian romance became a fashion in the late 12th century. The unexpected and peculiar adventures surprised the audience in romances like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1380).The romance had become a stable generic term by the beginning of the 13th century, as in the Roman de la Rose (c. 1230), famous today in English through Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century translation. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1380–87) is a late example of this European fashion. Prose narrators wrote narrative patterns as employed in fairy...
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...Kendra Perkins Matt Fox Eng 112 14 December 2011 The Odyssey: Comparison of Genders in Greek Mythology The Odyssey by Homer may be seen by many as a heroic story of a man on his journey home; however, there is an underlying story of the trials in the roles of men and women and the relationships between them. Men and women are portrayed differently in Greece, as in other societies. Men are considered to be the more powerful of the two and are responsible for the protection of their home. Women, on the other hand, are thought to care for the children and are also responsible for the supervision of both the interior and exterior of the home while the men are away. As a man, Odysseus showed great leadership in the war at Troy and was considered the hero at the Trojan War. His wife Penelope, on the other hand, exemplified the role of a woman and leadership in her daily duties of caring for the home and all of their possessions within. In her attempts to do so, she was overcome by suitors and was unable to stop them from partaking of all of their meat and drinks. This essay will explain the underlying roles of men and women in ancient Greece as well as modern day. The beginning of the novel takes place in Ithaka at the home of Odysseus. Suitors have overrun his home in the pursuit of marrying his “widow” Penelope. Telemakhos, son of Odysseus, felt it was a shame that these men would come into their home and eat and drink their house empty. Athena, daughter of Zeus, came to Telemakhos...
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...at theatres, on television, or home video are typically narrative films. They tell stories about characters going through experiences. But what are they really about? What is the content of a film? DIGGING DEEPER: FOUR LEVELS OF MEANING Recounting the plot of a movie, telling what happens, is the simplest way to explain it to someone else. But this is neither a film review nor a film analysis. It’s merely a synopsis that anyone else who sees or has seen the movie will likely agree with. This level of content may be called the referential content, since it refers directly to things that happen in the plot and possibly to some aspects of the story that are merely implied by the plot. In John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), four men from the city go on a weekend canoe trip that unexpectedly becomes a life or death struggle for survival of man against man and man against nature. Some characters survive, others don’t. Most films can be analyzed more thoroughly to reveal deeper levels of meaning. A review (perhaps 400-1200 words) typically includes personal impressions and evaluations of a movie’s content and techniques. A good review may be subjective, yet still touch superficially on topics that might be explored in more detail in a longer formal analysis. An analysis (perhaps 1200-12,000 words) attempts to determine how the film actually uses various cinematic techniques and elements of film or narrative form to make a viewer react in a certain way and why it...
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...Poetry, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels are concepts that first came to my mind when I think in the question “What is literature?” The definition of literature has change over time. The only thing that is certain about the meaning of literature is that the definition will change. The concepts about what is literature about also change over time. In order to get a clear understanding of exactly what literature is, first we need to know its definition. According to the Merriam-Webster, literature is defined by “the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age; the body of writings on a particular subject: printed matter.” Literature has to do with letters, but some people often think that literature is only one thing, not knowing that it is composed by several elements that we use every day. These important elements include poems, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels. Poetry is created from the soul. It comes from your emotions and it needs every piece of creativity inside you. It has been called the art of “saying the unsayable” because trough this you can express your feelings with no limit, and nobody can tell you that is wrong. If you make a poem and you think it is not good enough, well it is no good. You as the author or the reader, can only judge if it is good or but for you but maybe for some one else it is the opposite as it is for you. A good place to start when looking back at how poetry...
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...the short story, "A Rose for Emily", and James Joyce’s "Eveline", reflects the negative impact of these expectations. Based on information, culled from Dr David Smith’s notes, tragic heroes are driven and obsessed with past deeds or by fate, they are neither entirely good nor entirely bad and are fated to cause grief to individuals or to the community, they are often leaders in the community or head of family (2). Faulkner shows these common traits of tragic hero in Miss Emily Grierson; a protagonist in self-exile from the modern world, locked away in her decaying mansion (3). In James Joyce’s Eveline, a protagonist is revealed as tragic hero who endures a dramatic and tragic life full of conflicts, but Smith thinks otherwise, he refers to her as an anti-hero and is of the opinion that antihero should not be confused with tragic hero because, “existentialist believed modern life does not allow the existence of a true hero. Modern life dehumanizes everyone”(3), short of this, Eveline is a classic example of a tragic hero. William Faulkner’s Miss Emily and James Joyce’s Eveline are women who in the quest of fulfilling the roles assigned to them by their family, lover, and society, cost them happiness and freedom. Faulkner in his short story, “A Rose for Emily” shows in a complex chronological sequence, the confliction between the past and present in a southern gothic style. Miss Emily Grierson, a old spinster, who was well respected in her town of Jefferson. Smith writes, “Her...
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...north, and calling for action against the cruel institution of slavery. Employed as a teacher by Pace University in 1968, Jean Fagan Yellin wrote and published her dissertation. While re-reading Incidents in the 1970s as part of the project and to educate herself in the use of gender as a category of analysis, Yellin became interested in the question of the text's true authorship. Over the next six-years, Yellin found and used historical documents including the Amy Post papers at the University of Rochester (Post was a close friend of Jacobs), state and local historical societies, and the Horniblow and Norcum papers at the North Carolina state archives, to establish both that Harriet Jacobs was the true author of Incidents, and that the narrative was her autobiography. Her edition...
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...political and gender struggle tends to suppress women’s perspectives, consequently inhibiting a gender-inclusive imagining of the nation. This article argues that discourses about gender struggle in Zimbabwe’s post-2000 crisis have not sufficiently addressed the question of space; that is, the significance of the oppressed women’s physical and social space in shaping their grievances and imaginings of exit routes. Similarly, the article argues that representations of this historic period in literary fiction have accentuated the wider political and economic struggles at the expense of other (especially gender) struggles, thereby rendering them inconsequential. Using two short stories by Valerie Tagwira (“Mainini Grace’s Promise” and “The Journey”), the article explores the stories’ focalization of gender-entangled women in an urban space to understand the literary evocation of the condition of women caught up in a crisis in urban settings. INTRODUCTION The Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and...
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