A Hero's Journey In Through The Tunnel By Doris Lessing

In “The Greatest Journey” by James Shreeve, he talks about how we all share the same ancestors and we all come from Africa. He says that it all started in Africa about 200,000 years ago. These people who lived in Africa years ago started to leave the area and expand to Eurasia and Australia. As they were migrating to other places, they were able to adjust to the new environment. This is when everybody started to change because of weather, food, and other factors of environment that affected these people. But even though they separated and reproduced themselves, they were still connected by the same ancestor. As Shreeve states; “Generations later, finding that same mutation, or marker, in two people’s DNA indicates that they share the same ancestor”

A hero's journey is a pattern of narrative identities that appears in many dramas, storytellings, myths, and psychological development. The journey consist of twelve different steps and in the story Beowulf we read about the magnificent and rough journey that Beowulf and this men accomplish. Many people question if Beowulf is considered a hero and if what he did was good. The journey that he embarked on, leads me to believe that Beowulf is a hero and always will be.

Everyone has heard a good hero story, because they are everywhere, in the media, in history, and in even with each other. Tales of action and adventures have been around since humans have known how to tell stories, but every story has a similar journey that they embark on. The tale of the hero has many variations, but they each follow the same basic pattern that Joseph Campbell describes in his book A Hero with a Thousand Faces. Some stories only follow the basic outline of a hero, and others can be traced along the route exactly. An example that follows the outline exactly is The NeverEnding Story (1984) which is a movie based on a German book by Michael Ende. The tale is very interesting because it does not follow the path of only one

Linda Sue Park’s book entitled A Long Walk To Water is about two people on different paths that eventually meet. One character named Nya is a girl who walks 12 hours a day to get water for her family. While the other character Salva is a boy who is left in a country surrounded by war. In Salva’s story, his survival became possible through three main factors:his uncle, food and water; the memory of his family.

A major theme in the true story, A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park is perseverance. Perseverance is to stay steady in what you are doing or in a purpose, especially when you are faced with difficulties. This is a perfect theme for A Long Walk to Water because the main character, Salva Dut, an 11 year old Sudanese boy, faced many difficulties and kept going. He took things ‘bit by bit, one step at a time’, a lesson he learned from his uncle that helped him get through the desert, and he applied it to his life and kept going and believing his family was alive. Even though he almost died many times, he did not give up, and he went back to his home country and helped many people have better lives by building wells and giving them clean drinking water. Another character in this book is Nya, an eleven year old Sudanese girl, who has to walk eight hours every day to get water for her family. She always keeps going, even though the way is hard because it is hot and the ground hurts to walk on.

Book seven of Plato’s Republic (trans. 1968) presents the allegory of the cave and the idea that learning isn’t always pleasant. The story begin with men bound in a cave, facing the wall. Between the men and

The hero's journey is a popular form of writing that involves a hero who embarks on an adventure, quest, or journey where in the climax they win a victory, then comes home transformed or changed. The book, “The Odyssey” is a prodigious example of the hero's journey. Odysseus is the hero of “The Odyssey”. All heroes in a hero's journey display particular traits. Odysseus displays perseverance and fortitude, two specific characteristics that all heroes should display.

The duo’s entire journey is, in fact, a seemingly endless series of obstacles which the Man and Boy must face. These obstacles range from cannibals slowly trekking down the road to Mother Nature itself. For example, the Man and Boy barely escape cannibalistic gangs both when a gang unexpectedly appears on the road and when the Man discovers the basement of one such gang packed with naked men and women. In addition, even after securing a source of food, such as when they find the bunker, the Man and Boy always face the potential of starvation and the freezing cold weather because the Man knows they cannot carry all the food they find and that they cannot stay in one location for an extended period of time. Moreover, on two occasions, once when the cannibalistic gang find their cart and once when the thief on the beach steals the cart, do the Man and Boy lose nearly everything they have (though, they eventually catch the beach thief and, to the Boy’s disappointment and sadness, the Man forces him to give them everything he has). However, not all of the tests and enemies faced by the Man and Boy are physical obstacles; in several cases, these obstacles are their own minds. For example, the Boy sometimes expresses a desire to be with his mother in

‘’I was a coward. I went to the war’’ Pg187. In the short story, ‘’On The Rainy River’’ by Tim O’Brien, The protagonist faces a difficult life decision, he did not want to conform to society the way others wanted him to. He wanted to keep his personal beliefs. Tim O’Brien does not want to conform no matter how vital it is that he should. If he does not conform, he will lose everything including his personal beliefs, on the contrary, if he does conform he risks his life. Conforming in any way, shape or form has consequences, usually ending with losing something. Tim realizes this when he has to chose between himself and others. This could also be a form of peer pressure. Tim has a desire to live a normal life; work and play, a family someday,

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is an excellent utopian/dystopian fictional story about a man who fights for the freedom to read. The government in this world has made almost every book (with a few exceptions) illegal. They have done this due to the contradictory ideas found in them. It was thought that all of the contradictions might confuse citizens on what is the truth and what isn’t. This book, along with being a utopian fiction, follows the Hero’s Journey archetype. Even though this book may not have purposely been made as an example of the Hero’s Journey the book and many others follow the paradigm. It may not be a perfect example, however, it definitely has it’s moments.

Sir Gawain is one of King Arthur’s knights. It is Christmas time in Camelot, the time of the year where knights return home and people celebrate their achievements as well as the birth of Jesus. Every year they have a dinner with the king that must begin with a story before eating. No one has a story to tell which causes the king to postpone the dinner until, all of a sudden, a green knight appeared. This story contains ideas known as the hero’s journey.

You never know how helpless you are until you have a near death experience. One summer, when I was young, my family and I went to a water park. I didn’t know how to swim, but thankfully the majority of the park required no swimming ability. For one of the rides, I wanted to get out of my tube and jump around, but once I climbed out, I immediately sunk to the bottom. I tried to kick back up and just as my legs gave in, a lifeguard climbed in and pulled me up. I was grateful to him, but something was bothering me. I couldn’t save myself. That was the moment I decided that I was going to become a lifeguard someday to help myself and many others.

War is senseless violence and brutality, but also where you can fight for freedom and end injustice. The negatives of war, like senseless brutality are sometimes used for lessons, so men don’t abandon the war. The positives are fighting for your freedom and ending injustice, if your country wins the war you get your freedom and you stop unnecessary deaths. In the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, the Collier brothers show that war has many goods and bads to it. In the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, Tim decides to be neutral, at the end of the novel, due to the ironic death of his best friend Jerry, his father Life, and his brother Sam.

Obstacles make heroes’ perseverance stronger. Numerous stories display treacherous situations in which the protagonists use determination to survive. The Odyssey, written by Homer in the Archaic Age, captures a leader’s, Odysseus, hardships and will-power to keep going. Similarly, The Martian, a film adapted from Andy Weir’s book, exhibits Watney’s strong perseverance to continue on his journey, no matter the extremity of the problems he experiences . Although both epic adventures highlight creative problem-solving and questionable decision-making, Watney’s crew shows greater loyalty because of the friendships shared.

The archetypal Hero’s Journey is a pattern found in literature throughout many novels. In the novel The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien it shows a hobbits’ journey through a tough world on a quest to defeat a dragon. The hobbits’ name is Bilbo, and he and his acquaintances undergoe many trials and obstacles trying to reach the dragon. The novel A Dog’s Life by Ann M. Martin is about a dog who started out in a shed and is trying to survive out in the world as a stray. The dog’s name at birth was Squirrel, she withstands many trials such as fights and injuries with her companions. So, both authors portray the hero’s journey, but there are equal similarities and differences in their techniques.