The Hero's Journey
During all of week 2 of Crossing Cultural Borders, we are exploring the link between fantasy and multicultural literature. Since this week is called "Re-landscaping the Hero's Journey," I would like to briefly cover the hero's journey, which can be applied towards the plot structure of many fantasy stories.
In his myth analyzing book, Hero of a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell defines the hero in the following:
"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."
Campbell details many, many steps of the Hero's Journey, but here are the big ones:
1) A call to adventure (which the hero may reject but ultimately cannot deny and includes "crossing the first threshold," or the border between the old, familiar, ordinary world and the new world to be explore)
2) A road of trials (in the new world, where the hero is tested)
3) Achieving the goal (like in the climax of a story, an external victory over the biggest test, and this success usually coincides with an ephiphany of self-knowledge, after which the hero is changed forever)
4) A return to the ordinary world (where the hero must apply what he has learned and thereby demonstrate his growth)
The story arc of many adventure and fantasy stories follow this archtypal path. In addition, I believe that the hero's journey is the backbone of many Stranger in a Strange Land multicultural stories. For example, the foreign country visited can be compared to "a region of supernatural wonder." The call to adventure is usually prompted by family or boarding school, and after the country border is crossed, the road of trials is reflected by the American's struggle to adjust and accommodate to the foreign culture, which then the protagonist achieves a certain self-realization. Also, in Stranger in a Strange Land stories, the transformed American always returns back to America, "the ordinary world."
When I was researching Stranger in a Strange Land multicultural books for children and teens for week 1, I found very few titles that fit my criteria of a fictional story about an American child or teen leaving the country and exploring other cultures. Why are there so few of these books in children's literature? True most of the authors have lived in both countries featured in their novels, and people overall (especially in America) often have not traveled outside their own country. But my belief is that the fantasy genre replaces the Stranger in a Strange Land story for children. Indeed, what could land in real life could be stranger than a fantasy world?
Next topic: Harry Potter as a multicultural character (without Book 7 plot spoilers).
In his myth analyzing book, Hero of a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell defines the hero in the following:
"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."
Campbell details many, many steps of the Hero's Journey, but here are the big ones:
1) A call to adventure (which the hero may reject but ultimately cannot deny and includes "crossing the first threshold," or the border between the old, familiar, ordinary world and the new world to be explore)
2) A road of trials (in the new world, where the hero is tested)
3) Achieving the goal (like in the climax of a story, an external victory over the biggest test, and this success usually coincides with an ephiphany of self-knowledge, after which the hero is changed forever)
4) A return to the ordinary world (where the hero must apply what he has learned and thereby demonstrate his growth)
The story arc of many adventure and fantasy stories follow this archtypal path. In addition, I believe that the hero's journey is the backbone of many Stranger in a Strange Land multicultural stories. For example, the foreign country visited can be compared to "a region of supernatural wonder." The call to adventure is usually prompted by family or boarding school, and after the country border is crossed, the road of trials is reflected by the American's struggle to adjust and accommodate to the foreign culture, which then the protagonist achieves a certain self-realization. Also, in Stranger in a Strange Land stories, the transformed American always returns back to America, "the ordinary world."
When I was researching Stranger in a Strange Land multicultural books for children and teens for week 1, I found very few titles that fit my criteria of a fictional story about an American child or teen leaving the country and exploring other cultures. Why are there so few of these books in children's literature? True most of the authors have lived in both countries featured in their novels, and people overall (especially in America) often have not traveled outside their own country. But my belief is that the fantasy genre replaces the Stranger in a Strange Land story for children. Indeed, what could land in real life could be stranger than a fantasy world?
Next topic: Harry Potter as a multicultural character (without Book 7 plot spoilers).
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posted by Emily Jiang at 1:45 PM
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2 Comments:
Emily,
Now and Zen by Linda Gerber is part of a YA series of novels published by Puffin called Students Across the Seven Seas. I haven't read Linda's book yet (I move through kidlit according to my children's ages and I don't have a young adult yet). She was part of our Tokyo SCBWI chapter. She's had a foreign exchange student in her life, been one herself and lived in Japan for a while. She's also a hoot so I imagine her book is really good.
annie
Thanks, Annie. I will definitely look up her book and the series!
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