Hero’s Journey

Purpose: to argue whether or not a character from history, a book, a movie, or a television program represents an example of Joseph Campbells monomyth (heros journey)

Audience: an educated audience that might have some familiarity with the theory.

Genre: Persuasive academic essay

Tone: Formal- Avoid use of the I voice

Media: Print

Design: APA

For this essay, you should select a historical figure or a protagonist from a book, comic book, short story, movie, or television show and write an essay arguing whether or not this character would fit the monomyth (heros journey) definition of a hero. To make your argument, you should try to show how the characters story does or does not conform to many of the main characteristic and stages of the monomyth theory. You should provide explanations of each stage, specific examples from your characters story, and detailed explanations of how these examples support your claims about the characters relation to monomyth. You should use the PDF about monomyth that is available in doc sharing as one of source on the theory. In addition, you should use at least one primary source about your character such as a movie, book, or television episode featuring the character. You must relate that specific text to the monomyth story. If you simply use memory or Wikipedia, you are not likely to do well on the paper. Finally, you should use at least one secondary source, something written about either monomyth or your character.

You will be using APA format for the essays.  You will need a title page and a references page.  The paper should be divided into the following sections:

I. APA Title page

II. An Abstract that gives an overview/summary of your overall argument.  This should be approximately one paragraph in length.

III. A Body Section that includes each of the following

An Introduction that sets up your paper and includes a specific thesis statement about whether or not your hero meets the hero’s journey.

Sections dealing with each of the major stages of the hero’s journey.  In each of those subsections you must explain what that stage traditionally involves and you must provide specific references to your hero text that fulfills this category.  If you do not believe that a certain stage is fulfilled by your character, please explain why you believe this.

A Conclusion that sums up your overall argument.

IV. A References page.

You will need to use APA format including citations and a references page. As the PDF in notes is missing key information, I’ve include a references entry for it below:

Hamby R., & Hamby Z. (2019) The heros journey [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2084/0507/files/TheHeroJourney.pdf?10566526102737889760

The body of the paper should be 1000-1250 words (4-6pages) in length not including the title page, abstract, and references page.