[the] ENGLISH-BLOG [.com]

Story: A Worn Path
Author: Eudora Welty
Protagonist (Hero): Phoenix Jackson
Ordinary World: In the country traveling towards town
Special World: Her mind (example pg 2: “She did not date close her eyes, and when a little boy brought her a plate with a slice of marble cake on it she spoke to him. “That would be acceptable,” she said. But when she went to take it there was just her own hand in the air. 2nd example: pg 2: at the bottom page. When she sees a ghost and spoke to it. 3rd example: pg 3: dancing with the scarecrow)
Departure: Phoenix Jackson sets off on a journey through the woods.
Initiation: Does not stop to analyze what she’s imagining, she knows she must get into town for the medicine for her grandson. She must make her way through the rough forest, passed the “ghost” and hunter with his dog and seeing the scarecrow and dancing with it.
Return: She’s received the medicine for her grandson and will start back her journey home.
Transformation of the Protagonist: When she first entered the building she had forgotten why she was there, then after a few minutes she remembered and told the nurse why she had come and how her grandson was doing. At the end of the visit, she had ten cents and wanted to buy her grandson a windmill. The transformation was remembering why she was on the trip to forgetting then remembering again and being able to buy something since it was Christmas.

--------------

Super!

~Lee

American Lit
Blog 5

The Hero’s Journey in “Everyday Use”

The hero in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is Mama. The ordinary world is her home and the society she’s accustomed to, while the special world is Dee’s city life and her knew outlook on life. While Mama doesn’t have to physically do anything to cross into the special world, she does allow Dee to visit, which is probably a lot like the “call to adventure.” Dee’s special world is full of glam and glitz, and a need to return to African ways that seems almost alien to Mama. The tests and trials come as Dee attempts to convince her mother that the life she’s living is right, and they should all return to their African heritage. Allies and enemies become those who are pushing Mama toward this strange world (Dee and Hakim), and those who tie her to her old life (Maggie). The Supreme or deal comes when Dee asks for the quilt that has been promised to Maggie. Dee says that she wants to put it up on the wall and that Maggie will just use it everyday, which makes it a contrast between the values of the special world (their life is a relic, their true life should be with the new culture) and the home world (their life is the only true life, and tradition should be respected and used). Mama is able to overcome her tendency to give in to Dee and “rescues” the quilt from Dee, who gets angry and leaves, which returns Mama to the original world. This seems to be the elixir that heals the land, because anxious like they are at the beginning, Maggie and Mama are able to enjoy the evening. The transformation Mama has undergone is going from wanting to be someone that Dee would be proud of or a mother like she sees on TV to being happy and satisfied with the life she lives.

Departure:

The Call to Adventure – In the lyrics “One” by James Hatfield, the journey has already begun for the figurative hero and it is unknown for sure if the hero had refused the call, or had any super natural aide. Also, crossing the first threshold is unknown as the hero doesn’t have a literal location to where they started the adventure.

The Belly of the Whale - This is where the lyrics really start to take place as the hero is talking about having reached their lowest point. The hero has left behind their old life and he has now been left with the consequences of taking the adventure. Considering the lyrics where written in regards to “Johnny Got His Gun”, it is the after affects of going through and being badly injured by a landmine.

Initiation:

The Road of Trials – The trials that the Hero has to endure through this writing is acceptance of everything that they have lost. He goes through each stanza with something that they have lost. The hero cannot see or speak or make any real contact with the outside world, and that is the main trial in itself.

The Meeting with the Goddess/Woman as the Temptress – This step does not really exist for the hero in this writing. All they have is their memories of their old life and the love they used to have. Essentially the only thing making up the heroes life at this point is memories. There is no specified figure that stands in the way of reaching the ultimate goal aside from the hero himself. He has no future as he cannot go anywhere or communicate with anyone. The goal the hero is aiming for is to die so that he can move on from his imprisonment. The only thing that stands in the way is the doctors keeping him alive and his own inability to end his own life.

Atonement with the Father – The hero’s old life has been killed in this sense as he can never return to that life and must accept what he has become.

Apotheosis – The hero is stuck in between living and dying. He cannot reach the deified state on their own with out someone ending their life for them. The hero tries to hold his own breath in order to end being imprisoned by his own body, but he is not able to do it.

The Ultimate Boon – There is no great triumph, item or goal reached. The only thing the hero takes away from this adventure is the true horrors of what can occur in war.

Return:

Refusal of return - In this case the hero wants nothing more than to be able to return to his old life and be whole again.

The Magic Flight/Rescue From Without/Crossing of the Return Threshold - In this writing there is no returning for the hero. He is stuck in a perpetual state of being wounded and stuck with “life in hell”. The hero is literally stuck, most presumably, in a hospital bed somewhere, with no real chance to return to his old life as a changed person.

Freedom to Live - The hero has no real freedom of living as they are a prisoner to their own body with no “sight, speech, hearing, arms, legs, or a soul”. The hero actually wishes for the freedom of death, and prays to God to end his/her life.

In Langston Hughes’s “On the Road” the literal ordinary and special worlds are a little more difficult to find than are the symbolic worlds. The literal ordinary world could be seen as the place where Sargeant comes from; wherever he was before he got off of the freight train. The special world may be where we first see him searching for food and shelter (Reverand Dorset’s town). Sargeant is the hero. The symbolic ordinary world is the racist, unfair world that he lives in. The symbolic special world is a world free from inequality and judgment based upon skill color. It seems that when we first meet Sargeant he has already had his call to adventure and has embarked on his journey. He crosses the threshold of adventure when he first notices the church in front of him. It is after this that his road of trials begins. The Atonement with the Father takes place as Sargeant is struggling and fighting the policemen and white people who will not let him take shelter in the church. The white people are the “father” as they are the ultimate power in his life; they surround him and control his every action. This is what he is fighting to overcome. The stone Jesus could be seen as an ally for Sargeant, as He is the only character in the story that does not judge or discriminate against Sargeant. The supreme ordeal/final battle occurs when Sargeant realizes that he is not on a train, but rather, in jail being beaten. We do not physically see Sargeant return to the ordinary world, and it is highly unlikely that he does. Although he has begun to truly fight his battle with the attitude that no white person will hold him down, his imprisonment alone might be an indication that Sargeant has returned to the ordinary symbolic world—the world of racism and hopelessness. He has learned, however, to fight for what his rights in order to make a change.

Natasha Hill
Monomyth Model
4/1/08

“One” by James Hatfield and Lars Ulrich

Ordinary World: The ordinary world in “One” may be assumed as life before injury or war.

Birth/Home: In assuming that the hero is a soldier (possibly Trumbo’s Joe Bonham), then the hero is from a small town in the California. He leads a simple life in a quiet neighborhood.

Call to Adventure: The soldier/hero volunteers to fight in World War One in Europe.

Reluctant Hero: Possibly, yes but feels it is his duty (assuming this is Joe Bonham)

Supernatural Aid: There is no aid in the form of magic and wizards but I see God as his supernatural aid because the hero/soldier apparently did not die. But was this really an aid? The hero wishes for death due to his condition.

Special World: The special world is possibly life as a “cripple” or “slab of meat”. This is because the possibility of survival after such extensive injuries is like living in a supernatural world.

Road of Trials: Due to the physical condition of the hero, this is his trial. Learning to live with no arms, legs, eyes, nose, mouth, or hearing will be the test.

Allies/Enemies: In “One” there seem to be no helpers. The feeding tube can be a helper but also an enemy because it keeps the hero alive against his will. Enemies also include war, landmines, and even God for allowing him to live.

Supreme Ordeal/Climax/Final Battle: In the song, the supreme ordeal may be the fact that the hero cannot die or kill himself but must live in the supernatural world. It is unclear whether the hero accepts this or not so the song possibly ends at the supreme ordeal. The last line is “left me with life in hell” so maybe this is the hero accepting his fate. Nothing further happens to the hero.

*There is no marriage, baptism or blessing, no ultimate boon, there can be no flight or rescue due to the hero’s condition. There is no threshold out, no elixir, and no preparation for the next adventure. There is only a realized “life in hell”.

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
Protagonist: Joe Bonham
Ordinary World: Reality
Special World: Mind

Joe’s departure occurs when he realizes the effects from the shell (loss of arms, legs, face). His mind tests him constantly, as he struggles to develop the concept of time. During his initiation, he slowly comes to the realization of many things such as the warmth on his skin, the entering of nurses, number of times his dressings are changed, and the number of nurse visits that occur before he is bathed. He counts all of the occurrences in his mind and eventually develops an understanding of day and night. After this initiation, he tries to communicate by tapping his head to perform Morse code in his nurse’s presence. She thinks he is having a convulsing and sedates him. He is persistent and continues to tap his head. One day, he realizes that he is blessed with a new nurse. She communicates with him by writing Merry Christmas on his stomach. He taps his head in hopes of being able to communicate with her. She knows he is trying to communicate, but cannot figure out what he needs. The nurse brings in a man who understands Morse code to communicate with Joe. The man asks Joe what he wants, and after careful consideration, he decides that he wants people to see him in his condition, so the world knows what war does to people. Joe returns to reality when the man communicates that it can never happen. The hospital staff wants nothing to do with him and they want to shut him up. He is sedated once again, leaving him stuck in his own mind. He is not transformed, and he failed his mission.

Amanda S.

Blog Entry 5
The Monomyth
Candice S

The hero in the short story “Everyday use” by Alice Walker is no doubt the mother, coined as “Mama” who is also the protagonist. In terms of the monomyth as related to this short story, the simple life of Maggie and her mother without the presence of Dee is considered the ordinary world. Throughout the departure phase, Maggie and her mother are awaiting the arrival of their daughter and sister, Dee who they have not seen in years. Maggie could be considered the helper in terms of the monomyth.
The ordinary world changes into the special world when Dee arrives to visit her sister and mother with her newfound boyfriend. There are many trials that Dee actually causes to sort of test her mother. The first trial is that Dee changed her name and wants to be referred to by her new name. Dee also asks her mother where her name came from, and is frustrated that she cannot trace her history back farther. Next, Dee introduces her foreign boyfriend to her confused mother. Then, Dee asks for the churn top and the dasher for artistic purposes. Her mother lets her take them, despite her knowing that their intended purpose will not matter. The last trial Dee puts her mother through is the trial over the quilts. Dee asks to have the quilts that were handmade by her grandmother, but her mother resists her and hands the quilts to Maggie. Her mother makes the point that Maggie will use the quilts and not just hang them on the wall.
After this last trial, Dee leaves and the return phase occur and the ordinary world is back. The transformation of the hero is more or less a realization. Basically Mama realizes that her oldest daughter is very fake, even if she has achieved so much she is not honest or true to her actual heritage.

“On The Road” by Langston Hughes:

The protagonist/hero in the story called “On the Road” by Langston Hughes, is the character named Sergeant. He is a homeless African American man that is tired, hungry and sleepy. Sergeant’s overall objective is to find shelter to sleep and find some food.
In the story “On the Road”, it exhibits an ordinary and also a special world throughout the theme of the story. The ordinary world is displayed in a sense that it takes place in a logical setting, in the snow, most likely during the depression, at night in a small town. The special world however isn’t as easy to catch onto as the ordinary world theme. The “special world” starts when Sergeant knocks down the church and thinks that he has not only met Jesus, but walked a substantial distance till they parted way at the train tracks. The “special world” is also exhibited in another part in the story where Sergeant was trying to jump into an oncoming train when he finds that the train car he is trying to get into is filled of police officers beating his hands, when in reality, he is actually in jail with a police officer beating his hands.
“On the Road” has three particular parts that I would like to touch on, referring to “The Hero’s Journey”, or the “Monomyth”, Departure, Initiation, and Return. In the story “On the Road” , the Departure phase starts when Sergeant walks down the street and knocks on the reverend’s house and is immediately turned away, and also everything else that leads up to the next phase, the Initiation phase. In the Initiation phase in the story “On the Road”, Sergeant tries to seek shelter in the church, but finds that the doors are locked. So Sergeant decides to try and bust through the church doors, starts a ruckus and the police come, who in turn try to apprehend Sergeant, but he is holding onto the big white pillar in front of the church for dear life. Eventually after the help of the towns’ people, the police pull Sergeant off of the pillar and then the church collapses, with Jesus and Sergeant rising from the rubble, not hurt. This is the climax of the story. The next phase is the Return phase. This is where Sergeant makes his transformation. After he realizes that he isn’t trying to jump into a train car, actually he is in jail, clenching the steel bars, wondering where he is, how he had gotten their, and also, “Where is Jesus, I wonder?” This is Sergeant’s rebirth back to reality basically.

Thomas A.

Ernest Hemingway’s hero, Jake, in The Sun Also Rises, was probably once a man of great strength and vigor; a man with much to offer until he loses his “manhood” in the military. From that point on, his humdrum existence has little value and even less direction.

Jake simply maintains his life; he floats through bars, mingles with friends, and moves his travel weary body from one mattress to another in hopes of finding an elusive happiness.

The single constant in Jake’s life that allots even a flickering of happiness is a lady. And this lady is not exactly a constant. Brett’s cool demeanor instantly calms Jake making him feel at home, no matter his location. This idea of love and happiness that he’s conjured in his head was a complete departure from his world of inability and self-loathing. The ridicule stops once Brett offers herself to him, which she does repeatedly, albeit not fully.

Jake simply cannot pull himself away from the idea that is his love with and for Brett. The opportunity to love and comfort her, in an attempt to offer himself solace, appears over and over, yet he sees it as a positive opportunity rather than a detrimental assault on his emotional and mental being.

Jake’s fishing trip brought about new insights and openness with a companion that rivals truthfulness. Teetering on the edge of this newfound emotionalism, Jake steps back from the reality of an honest world, stepping back instead into his comfortable world of certain gloom and doom. The fishing trip, which lasted several days, could have provided for emotional, physical, and spiritual insight yet resulted in only a basic physical workout.

Jake’s relentless torture of himself, his lack of self-esteem, and unwillingness to grow leaves him struggling to breathe in his physical world of unhappiness. His minimal growth through various travels such as to Barcelona, during trials including his consistent heartache, and in dealing with others, friends and foes, results in a man much worse for the wear.

His many opportunities go unwelcomed and his challenges unmatched, leaving him only to think about how pretty it could be.

The Monomyth of “A Jury of Her Peers”

In Susan Glaspell’s story, “A Jury of Her Peers” one could chose just about any character to be the “hero” in the story. An argument could be made that Mrs. Peters, Minnie Foster, or the sheriff and his helpers could all be broken down using Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth theory. However, the character that I feel fits the monomyth mold the best, is Martha Hale.
The story begins on page one with Martha Hale where she calls home; literally. The story begins at Mrs. Hale’s home located in Dickinson County, and starts with Mrs. Hale in her kitchen. Her home is her “ordinary world” and where her journey begins. This is also the place that the reader assumes Mrs. Hale will eventually return back to.
While Mrs. Hale is at home, she receives her “call to adventure” from the county sheriff whose wife, Mrs. Peters has requested that Mrs. Hale accompany them to the scene of a crime at the Foster household where Mr. Hale has turned up dead. The sheriff and his men suspect foul play, and Mrs. Peters did not want to be alone while the men were investigating. Mrs. Hale is at first reluctant to go along, first because of the extraordinary nature of the events occurring, and second because she does not like to leave her kitchen a mess. However, she eventually concedes so not to upset her husband and the sheriff.
It is also on page one where the reader meets Mrs. Hale’s helper on the adventure. Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife who has requested her presence, is also the character that will remain with her throughout the story. It is their team work that will eventually solve a mystery at the end of the story.
The threshold of adventure is crossed in the last paragraph on page one, when Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters literally cross the threshold of the door to the Foster’s home. This is accentuated with the line “Even after she had her foot on the door step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross the threshold.” The Foster home could be seen as taking on a kind of supernatural aura, after a dead body was found in the house. This sediment is echoed by Mrs., Peters when she nervously says to Mrs. Hale “I’m glad you came with me.” At the very least, the Foster home would be considered as a place very different from Mrs. Hale’s home.
The first enemy that Mrs. Hale encounters during her first trial is actually her own husband. Mr. Hale is the individual who found Mr. Fosters body. On page 3, Mr. Hale is recounting the story of the previous day’s events. In the second paragraph, he goes a bit far in adding his own take to the Foster’s relationship. In paragraph three, the author lets the reader know that Mrs. Hale thinks he has gone too far with the sentence “Now there he was! –saying things he didn’t need to say.” The story continues with Mr. Hales statement, and in the last paragraph, it is once again echoed that Mrs. Hale is not happy with her husband’s statement with the line “She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble.”
The second enemy in the story is a group of men. The sheriff, the county attorney, Mr. Hale, and Mr. Peters. These men will interact in the story numerous times, and are crucial to the revelations that Mrs. Hale, with the help of Mrs. Peters will come to. The first time we see the men, is on pages five and six, when the sheriff and the other men are condescendingly talking to the women about their “trifles” such as kitchen things, the jars of fruit, and the poor housekeeping. Mrs. Hale defends Mrs. Foster by saying “There’s a great deal of work to be done on the farm.” The county attorney responds with “Ah, loyal to your sex I see.” This is a clear indication that the first battle to be fought will be the age old battle of the sexes, men against women. The battle lines are again drawn when the men leave the women alone downstairs to investigate the crime scene and leave the ladies with the parting line “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?”
The next battle that will occur in the story begins on page nine when Mrs. Peters asks Mrs. Hale if she thinks Minnie did it. Mrs. Hale responds that she does not believe that she did, that it was a crime of anger, and there were no signs of anger exhibited from Minnie in the house. This conversation sets into motion an internal struggle for Mrs. Hale. Her heart wants to believe that Minnie Foster is innocent but the evidence the women will soon find is going to make it hard to follow her heart. Perhaps the most difficult battle in Mrs. Hale following her heart is that she knows “the law is the law”. She must first get past this fact before she can begin to justify Minnie’s actions. This begins on page ten where Mrs. Hale sees the poor condition of the oven Minnie was forced to cook in. The line “the law is the law, and a bad stove is a bad stove-how’d you like to cook on this” is the first indication that Mrs. Hale is sympathizing with the plight of Minnie Foster.
On page eleven, the reader sees the next round of the male verses female storyline. The women find that Minnie was working on a quilt. They ask the question whether Minnie had planned on “quilting it or knotting it.” This statement is overheard by the sheriff and his men who promptly laugh at the trivial things the women are discussing. The attitudes of the men agitate Mrs. Hale, which Glaspell shows in the line where Mrs. Hale resentfully says “I don’t see as there’s anything so strange, our taking up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about.”
Also on page eleven, Mrs. Hale sees the first indication that perhaps Minnie Foster was stressed or out of sorts. All of the quilting pieces that Minnie had been working on were neat and uniform. Mrs. Peters comes across a piece with odd stitching and states “All the rest of them have been so nice and even-but-this one. Why, it looks as though she didn’t know what she was about!” Mrs. Hale responds by pulling out the bad stitching and fixing it, much to the dismay of Mrs. Peters who feels “things ought not to be touched.”
Page twelve brings about a major part of the story. Although it is not the climax itself, the climax would not be as important if this battle did not occur. Mrs. Peters finds a bird cage and asks Mrs. Hale if Minnie had a bird. They assume that if there is a cage, there had to have been a bird. But where the bird has gone perplexes the women. After ruling out the thought that perhaps a cat had gotten it, the women notice that the door to the bird cage is broken, as though the cage was ripped open. It appears someone was “rough with it.” The women resume conversation in blaming themselves for never visiting Minnie Foster. They attribute it to the fact that Minnie was never the same after marrying John Foster. She became withdrawn and quiet, fragile even. They compare her before she married Mr. Foster, to the bird “real sweet and pretty-but kind of timid and fluttery.” As Mrs. Hale goes to look for Minnie’s scissors, she makes a horrifying discovery. Hidden in the sewing box is the dead bird. It appears that its neck has been broken, as it is twisted in an odd direction.
As the women come to the same conclusion as to what happened to the bird, they hear the men outside the door. This is where the climax of the story takes place. Instead of telling the men what they have found, evidence that would surely give Minnie Foster motive to kill her husband, Mrs. Hale instead hides the box with the dead bird. The men notice the empty bird cage and ask what has happened to the bird. Mrs. Hales lies to the sheriff and says “we think a cat got it.” Mrs. Peters backups her statement when asked if there was a cat by saying “they’re superstitious, you know; they leave.” The men once again leave the women after deeming that they have not found anything of significance.
On page sixteen, Glaspell shows the audience that the women feel the bird was important to Minnie because she was going to bury it in the “pretty box”, therefore meaning that she obviously did not kill it. Mrs. Hale states that Mr. Foster would not have liked the bird singing and that Minnie “used to sing, and that Mr. Foster killed that too.” The conversations that follow indicate that the women feel bad for the life that Minnie was forced to lead, and that any evidence they found did not make Minnie guilty, even though they both felt that she was.
The final battle that Mrs. Hale takes part is on page 19, when she decides that she is not turning over the bird to the men. She puts the box with the dead bird into her pocket before as she is getting ready to leave the Foster home and return to her own home. In a sense, she has rescued Minnie Foster from an almost certain guilty conviction by hiding the evidence of Minnie’s tortured state of mind. As Mrs. Hale returns to her home, she has been transformed. She has lied to authority and to her husband about a serious crime, and has come face to face with her own guilt about being neighbors with Minnie Foster and not ever visiting. In Mrs. Hale’s mind, she is vindicating this guilt, by hiding the damning evidence against Minnie.

Chris King
Chronicles of Narnia is a story that holds a religious background belief. In the story, there could be many possibilities of heroes. I feel that the ring leader hero is Peter, the eldest sibling of four. Peter’s family ends up moving away from the war, for obvious reasons, and is now located with a professor with in his castle. The world they are currently in is the ordinary world; what most would consider our world today. The youngest child, Lucy, discovers a wardrobe in a spare room of the castle. For whatever reason, she decides this is an excellent place to hide for there game, hide and seek. She stumbles upon a new world which most would consider the special world. She spends some time there meeting new people/creatures before returning the same way she arrived. Eventually, all of the siblings make it to the special world and are amazed with it, but not without first skeptical and not believing. There was a creature who helped Lucy when she arrived the first time, but something has happened to him compelling the family to stay and help. They fight the cold snowy weather in hopes of helping the creature. Upon this they run into beavers which lead/guide them through this adventure. One sibling, Edward, gets under the power of evil and is subjected to some bad things. Now the family is committed to finding their brother and saving him. They meet up with the “good guys” and they eventually find there brother. Now they are struck with the task of staying to help fight the war to free Narnia, the special world. They fight and win the war freeing Narnia using the tools given to them. Now they retreat to the kingdom in Narnia where they stayed until there adulthood as kings and queens. Until, one day stumbling upon the “spare” room. Now is when they return to the ordinary world. They are put back to the age they were upon leaving the ordinary room and time has not passed but only a few moments. The family wonders if they will ever return, but feel probably not. The professors take is that they could, but probably when they aren’t looking for it.

In reference to Plato’s “Into the Cave” theory, the mono-myth theory can also be applied. First to identify the hero, it is the person who has been freed or freed himself to explore the cave and hopefully come out. The ordinary world in this case would be the cave itself. Where all people are sitting and watching the shadows dance upon the walls, unable to turn their heads, do not actually know where the voices are coming from. The special world is out of the cave and going outside where not only the light source is but true knowledge is as well. Obviously the departure of this story is the person being released from the chair where he or she was chained and unable to move his or her head. The initiation in this story would be the trials of finding them-self out of the cave; constantly keeping their eyes towards the light, even though Plato describes the light as painful because it is not something easily adjusted to the eyes, the brightest it would be is just coming out of the cave and stepping on ground outside. The return in this case is back into the cave, as according to Plato, to rescue the rest of the people still blinded by an alternate world and not the true knowledge that they are capable of. The transformation that takes place is the individual obtaining a true knowledge by fighting the pain of the bright light until that person reaches outside the cave where the gods bestow that true knowledge upon that person. Now the responsibility of that person is to go back into the cave and rescue the rest of the people still chained up to the chairs watching the shadows on the wall.

Heather Stull
Mr. Lee Hobbs
EL 267.01
Reader response 4-2-08

I have chosen to examine the monomyth in Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun”. Joe Bonham, the protagonist, is the hero. In the novel, the literal ordinary world is Joe’s world before he is injured in the war. The special world is the world in which he exists, his mind, after he is injured. Symbolically, the ordinary world is the world that America knew before they entered into the war. The symbolic special world is the world that is altered from the war-Americans (and others) living with the death, confusion, and transformation of post-war society.
Quite amusingly, Joe’s “departure” into the special world, happens shortly after his departure from his friends and family at the station. He leaves from his home town because he has been drafted. He is taken out of his comfort zone, surround by family, friends, and the girl he loves, and thrown into the world of war with death, destruction and violence. This world serves almost as a portal into his “special world” which he enters through being severely injured.
Joe encounters several tests. First, he must identify what is happening to him… is he dreaming or remembering? He undertakes one limb and sense at a time to uncover the gruesome reality of his condition. He also faces the challenge of regaining time. His biggest challenge comes in trying to figure out how to communicate with the outside world. By accomplishing this he feels that he has bridged the gap between the two worlds but unfortunately he can never truly return home. One reason for this is that the doctors refuse his wish to be an exhibition of the realities of war. He is denied having a purpose. Obviously another reason is his severe physical limitations. Joe will never be able to exist as he once did. But most importantly, Joe is not able to return to the ordinary world because no one can. The world has been forever altered from the war. Lives have been wasted, families destroyed, the economy and social structure altered. War has always served as a division and probably always will. Even this class is influenced by a war… literature studied before the war and literature studied after the war. Even without his physical problems, Joe would never have been able to truly return to his “original” world.

T. Wineland
Prof. Hobbs
Monomyth
April 2, 2008

In Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun” the hero would be Joe Bonham who is also the protagonist and narrator of the story. Joe begins the narrative in the ordinary world which is the world of the living and the world of communication and being one with society. However, the people of this world, including Joe are hidden from the realities of wartime and the darkness of the real world. Regardless of his own beliefs about war, Joe is forced to enlist in the army for WWI and crosses the threshold, leaving his home town of Shale City, Colorado, for the horrors in the land of warfare. During the time which Joe is on duty he sees, hears and experiences the brutality and inhumanity of war while forced to fight for his survival. This change brings Joe into the special world, where things are quite different than they had been at home. He is cut off from family and friends, forced to be in a position that he loathes yet has no choice but to endure the cruelty surrounding him.

The initiation phase begins when Joe wakes up from a deep sleep realizing that something is wrong. Through efforts of trial and error he comes to realize that he cannot hear, he cannot see, he does not have a mouth to speak or a nose to smell. He also comes to the realization that he has no arms or legs. He is cut off from society, has no clear accounting of the time he has been out of commission or of his present surroundings. He has lost his sense of time, day and orientation. Initially he panics and struggles with his ability to grasp the severity and loneliness of his condition.

However, during his stay in the hospital, representing his trials in the special world, he utilizes his time by finding ways to communicate with the outside world. He not only determines the difference between his day and night nurses by their entrances and exits, but he also is able to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin, indicating that it was sunrise. This gives him a concrete sense of time and brings him ever closer to the world he once new. He also practices Morse code using his head and the pillow to send messages. Unfortunately, these initially go by unnoticed. Finally a nurse uses her fingers to spell Merry Christmas on Joe’s chest, giving him a date to go with the time of day he has already discovered.

Crossing the threshold back over to the ordinary world would probably be best represented by Joe’s ability to use Morse code and successfully communicate with someone in the hospital. Joe realizes that he is finally being understood and tells the doctor that he would like to leave the hospital and possibly be used as an educational exhibit to pay his way in the world. Unfortunately, Joe’s request does not fall within the regulations and it is denied, leaving him to wonder why now there are sudden regulations over his existence.

Despite his rejected request, Joe is reborn because he knows now that he has gone from losing the world almost entirely to recapturing a place for himself there. He understands that cruelty and inhumanity reside within both worlds even though they are concealed in the ordinary world and exploited in the special world. In a sense Joe’s journey led him from ignorance to the truth of real humanity, he being a representation of war’s true brutality.

This novel is a great example for a monomyth because it can also be broken down between Book I which is titled “The Dead”, and Book II which is titled “The Living.” Each book can clearly represent an ordinary world and a special world with noticeable thresholds.

The hero that I have chosen to discuss exists in the novel “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemmingway. The character that is the hero or protagonist in the story is Jake Barnes. Jake Barnes starts his “hero’s journey” when he is in his ordinary world of Paris working as a journalist. Jakes departure begins with his call to adventure from Cohn. Cohn writes Jake a letter holding him to a trip that they talked about in a previous winter. Cohn wants to go on a fishing trip in Spain. Jake has been bothering Jake about this trip for a while and Jake finally decides to go.
Initiation begins when Jake and his friend Bill start on their trip to Spain. Spain is the special world in this journey. More of Jake’s friends are also going to be on the trip. Lady Brett, Mike, Cohn, Bill and Jake all end up in Spain together in the special world. The special world is a kind of vacation to fish, drink, and party. Jake and his friends attend a couple bull fights and a final parade at the end of the trip. These events are the climax of the stage of initiation. Jake and his friends get drunk and admire the bull fighters. The flight that happens in the stage of initiation would be when Jake and his friends have to go back home to the ordinary world to work and live life like normal. When Jake returns to Paris, there isn’t really a transformation. Jake is the same type of person that he began his journey on. He is still in love with Brett and knows that he can’t have her, he is still impotent, and he is still “lost” in his life and looking for happiness.

Heather Stull
Mr. Lee Hobbs
EL 267.01
Reader response 4-2-08

I have chosen to examine the monomyth in Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun”. Joe Bonham, the protagonist, is the hero. In the novel, the literal ordinary world is Joe’s world before he is injured in the war. The special world is the world in which he exists, his mind, after he is injured. Symbolically, the ordinary world is the world that America knew before they entered into the war. The symbolic special world is the world that is altered from the war-Americans (and others) living with the death, confusion, and transformation of post-war society.
Quite amusingly, Joe’s “departure” into the special world, happens shortly after his departure from his friends and family at the station. He leaves from his home town because he has been drafted. He is taken out of his comfort zone, surround by family, friends, and the girl he loves, and thrown into the world of war with death, destruction and violence. This world serves almost as a portal into his “special world” which he enters through being severely injured.
Joe encounters several tests. First, he must identify what is happening to him… is he dreaming or remembering? He undertakes one limb and sense at a time to uncover the gruesome reality of his condition. He also faces the challenge of regaining time. His biggest challenge comes in trying to figure out how to communicate with the outside world. By accomplishing this he feels that he has bridged the gap between the two worlds but unfortunately he can never truly return home. One reason for this is that the doctors refuse his wish to be an exhibition of the realities of war. He is denied having a purpose. Obviously another reason is his severe physical limitations. Joe will never be able to exist as he once did. But most importantly, Joe is not able to return to the ordinary world because no one can. The world has been forever altered from the war. Lives have been wasted, families destroyed, the economy and social structure altered. War has always served as a division and probably always will. Even this class is influenced by a war… literature studied before the war and literature studied after the war. Even without his physical problems, Joe would never have been able to truly return to his “original” world.

In the short story, “The Worn Path”, by Eudora Welty, the hero is an old, African American lady named Phoenix. Her literal world is walking the path through the woods to get her grandson medicine in town. Her symbolic journey is going through the obstacles of old age. Her departure is when she is traveling through the path and she begins to hallucinate various things are happening to her. Phoenix’s call to adventure is every time she has to go get medicine and walk this path. Her hallucinations are when she crosses the threshold. The supernatural aid that causes this, I believe to be the sun. She begins imagining things right after she makes a comment about how bright the sun is. The initiation in this story is when Phoenix goes through different obstacles while walking through the woods. She yells at animals, climbs up and down steep hills, crawls over different logs and branches, falls in a ditch, its hot outside and the length of the path is very long. The “father” in this story is the nurse at the clinic that held her grandson’s medicine. The “father” has to give Phoenix the medicine, which is the purpose for her journey. I don’t believe that there is a return to this story because the author never tells us about her venture back home to her grandson. Symbolically, I do not believe there is a return. I think she stays on her journey through age.

The hero that I am going to discuss from “On the Road” by Langston Hughes is Sargeant. He goes on a journey throughout the story. He starts off in his ordinary where racism exists. He wants to put a stop to racism so he begins his journey. Along the way, he is turned down by many people that he asked for help. They are the ones that show that racism in fact does exist. He is turned down for a place to stay by the Reverend. One would think that a Reverend would be willing to help anyone, but that is not the case for Sargeant. Sargeant becomes fed up with the way that he is getting treated. He tries to break into the church for a warm place to stay. The police come to arrest him, but he does not give up. He grabs onto one of the pillars of the church and tears it down, crushing the police. This is when he crosses into his special world where racism does not exist. He meets Jesus Christ here who walks along with him for a while. Christ is made of stone and so was the pillar that Sargeant was carrying down the street during the time they walked together. Sargeant still needs to find a warm place to spend the night. He and Jesus keep walking until they come to the hobo jungle. This is where there journey together ends. At this time, Sargeant crosses back into his ordinary world, the world where racism exists. He wakes up and finds himself in prison. He is getting his knuckles beat because he was holding onto the door and would not let go. Throughout this short story, I think that Sargeant made a transformation because he was sick of the racism in the world. He no longer wanted to deal with it so he was trying to do something about it. He was trying to make things right and he was put in jail for it.

“Heroine” Lady Brett Ashley

“Real World” – Paris France “Special World” – Pamplona, Spain

“Call to adventure” – Brett’s fiancé was out of town so Brett was living life large and seeking Jake, or teasing, in the process.

“Cross into the threshold” – Brett has a fling with Robert Cohn

“Tests and trials” – Michael and Robert fighting over her and making idiots of themselves

“Supreme Ordeal” – Brett breaks up with Michael to pursue Pedro Remero, whom is a significant amount younger than Brett.

“Cross the Threshold” – Brett breaks up with Pedro and goes back to Michael…she feels that she is a threat to Pedro’s career

“Rebirth or transformation” – I think that Brett doesn’t go through a real transformation she still is dependent on the other sex but she does realize that someone so young and career oriented wasn’t good for her and she realized her needs.

I choose “On the Road” by Langston Hughes as my source

I think the “Hero” in “On the Road” is absolutely Sargeant. He has to fight with the bad weather, the snow, hungry and find himself a place to stay.

His “Ordinary World” is the real world which is not very kind to the Sargeant including the church and the jail Those place actually give him a place to stay and live without the bad weather. He got arrested and falls into a false reality.

The “Special World” for Sargeant is his spirit world, whatever the ordinary world do to him, he is not going to surrender. In his mind, the God is always stay with him. He pleased the God to give him the strength when he is judged.
The departure is from the church to the jail.

-----------------

*NOTE* The deadline for this assignment has now passed. Any comments listed below are *ONLY* for the reposting of proposals that I asked to be revised. Any posted below that missed the deadline will not get credit for the assignment.