myth and the hero's Journey

Myth and the Hero's Journey

the one we're going to focus on for your second essay is the last one on the list of schools, the Mythopoeic. Click on the following 3 links below, each of which offers a good overview of the anthropologist Joseph Campbell, who outlined a mythological structure called the Hero's Journey. The article is followed by a map of the Hero's Journey and then a video that illustrates the Hero's Journey. Go through each link in order to build a firm foundation on mythopoeic criticism so you can then apply this structure to Winterson's novel.

1. Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey

Download Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey

2. Map of the Hero's Journey

Download Map of the Hero's Journey

3.

Video

Myths Are Actually About You

So we've been talking a little about myths and the structure of a mythic story, as embodied by the Hero's Journey. This structure is a kind of foundation that shares some similarities to Freytag's Pyramid, which you read about in an earlier module on the element of Plot. Myths appear repeatedly in a culture, because they give shape to what would otherwise appear to be random and unrelated incidents in a life. This is one of the things that makes myths so important is they offer a structure for understanding human experience by giving it, among other things, a beginning, middle, and end. So we may not be a hero in the way that Luke Skywalker or Katniss Everdeen is a hero, but there is something about their experiences that we can all relate to. What myths do is it takes those random and unrelated events of our lives and gives them shape and meaning. This is what we often refer to as "the story of our lives".

Armed now with this critical tool called the "Hero's Journey", you should start asking yourself 'In what ways does Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit fit into this mythic structure?' As you continue reading Winterson's novel, we're going to take a little time to look more closely at the different Stages of the Hero's Journey to get a better understanding of how they apply to a literary work. You'll then engage in a discussion of how certain scenes from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit fits into any of the Stages of the Hero's Journey.

Please read through the whole prompt so you understand what you're going to be doing for the essay.