Theme Of The Hero's Journey In The Corpse Bride

Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride is story of a young man who is soon to marry a young, beautiful later, but as he is rehearsing for his wedding day, he places his ring on a skeletons finger. This creates a huge misunderstanding and the young man, Victor must try to escape land of the dead in which he is summoned into when he “asks the skeleton to marry him”. He must find a way back before he loses his soon to be wife, Victoria. In the year of 1949, Joseph Campell introduced the concept of the “hero’s journey”. This is simply the idea behind a good story and acts as a basic outline to almost every single great adventure story. The hero’s journey includes things such as the characters call to action, the character’s struggle, how the character overcomes his struggles, the final reward (often times the lady), and even certain symbols throughout a story. Victors experience throughout The Corpse Bride certainly represents Campell’s idea of the Hero’s Journey.

The reward is Victor and Victoria finally being able to get married. Victor has been fighting for this throughout almost the entire story and was both him and Victoria wanted from the moment they laid eyes upon each other. Also, in order to achieve that point, they overcame their obstacle (another archetype used in the Hero’s Journey) and defeated Lord Barkus. After defeating Lord Barkus, they had achieved the grand reward, marriage. But this didn’t just happen. Victor had a mentor to guide him throughout his