Wizard Of Oz Hero's Journey Essay

When Jean Houston, visionary leader and teacher, asked Oprah this question she was referring to "the hero's journey," the concept that has been the ongoing theme in all the greatest stories and myths ever told throughout history. In particular, she was referring to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, another one of my all time favorite movies. Even as a child I felt that it was so much more than just a children's fairy-tale. I've always felt a deep spiritual message within it, which is why Dorothy's last line in the movie makes me cry - Every single time that I watch it. All the great narratives are basically the same tale.

Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey, appears in the foundation of modern hero tales, such as drama, storytelling, myth, and religious rituals. The first step in The Hero’s Journey is the Departure phase, it’s where the hero has an unusual birth or early childhood and is forced to leave their everyday life to face the challenges that await them. Next, is the initiation phase, it’s where the real challenges and trials occur. The hero has a mentor or guide who gives them a special weapon or advice so that when the hero faces the darkest part, the temptation to give up or quit, they will transform and achieve their goal. Lastly, the return phase is when the hero returns home and is able to recognize the experiences the hero had in the other world.

Character Archetypes In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy was accompanied by a hunting group of companions on her journey to the Emerald City. Her companions consisted of Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion, who were loyal and willing to face hardships and ordeals in order to stay together. All wanting seemingly unattainable things, they came along to meet the Wizard of Oz.

Joseph Campbell was a well-known mythologist, who was well known for his work that covers a lot of aspects of the human experience. He is stated to believe that the monomyth of a hero’s journey can be applied to any type of literature such as movies, dreams, and so on. So in this essay I will be talking about five subcategories he talks about and comparing them to the movie Hercules. As we already know Hercules is a movie about Zeus son Hercules that was kidnapped when he was young and turned into a half mortal and he cant return to his family until he proves to be a hero. The subcategories I will be talking about is the call to adventure, refusal of the call, supernatural aids, the road of trails, and belly of the whale.

The book opens on the Yellow Brick Road. Dorothy and her friends are being watched by the Wicked Witch, and she thinks back on her life in Oz, how she wasn’t always so wicked as others think she is. “But surely the curse was on the land of Oz, not on her. Though Oz had given her a twisted life, hadn’t it also made her capable?”(page 4). It’s not Elphaba’s fault that she’s wicked, Oz had shaped her this way.

Understanding Death The concept of the Hero’s Journey is about telling a story. The Hero’s Journey was created by Joseph Campbell who was an anthropologist who studied myths and stories around the world. It is a cycle where a person goes from a state of certainty to a state of uncertainty. There is a twelve-step process where a person goes from an ordinary world into a state of confusion.

OVERARCHING THEMES Though The Odyssey and Paradise Lost are penned during completely separate time periods–with a span of roughly nine centuries between the writing of each–the two works still share many similar themes and subject matters. Some are more vital components for the genre in general, necessary for a piece of literature to be considered an epic; others remain less conspicuous, though with just as great an impact on the overall story. Heroism and the Hero’s Journey: One of the most defining elements of an epic work is the presence of the Hero’s Journey, also known as the monomyth. Introduced by Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey describes the typical narrative pattern that accompanies many forms of storytelling, most commonly and most easily seen in classical literature.

In the Wizard of Oz, the “it” that Dorothy had to learn was to appreciate the things that she had. In the movie, it states, “Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn appreciate the Earth for herself”. That was true if Glinda would have told Dorothy that she could go home just by tapping her shoes, she would not believe it. Next in the movie, “No.

Chunk, the sound of the metal scrapping the old rotten wood. The old rotten floor, he stood apoun that creaked and groaned with movement he and his ''friend'' made. The same wood that seemed to yell even louder as soon as his knife had touched the ground. Not that it mattered to him at the moment, for it has completed it's task, taking the life of his ''friend''. He quickly picked up the now dead body, and attempted to drag his heavy bloody load away, to properly dispose of it.

Instead of the rainbow, tornado brings her to some fantasy place of Oz. Whom does Dorothy meet in Oz? Good and Bad presented by Glinda Witch of the North and Wicked Witch of the West. Let us think about the part of people at a subconscious level, we have both parts in ourselves.

The movie Cinderella Man was incredibly accurate of what it was like to live in the great depression, in its portrayal of the characters, setting, and events of the movie. Like in the movie, Jim J. Braddock was a boxer that lived during the great depression. He had many adversities that he had to face, and they are generally what fueled him to continue fighting. Movies usually tend to over exaggerate struggles, but Cinderella Man shows the raw reaction and reality during that time. The details about the characters in this movie are very accurate except for a few small details.

Also, her companions the lion, scarecrow and tin man give such a great comical performance to bring fun and happiness to the film. The advent of Technicolor allowed the filmmakers to perform one of the greatest surprises in cinema history. After a 20-minute extensive first act, set in a beige sepia-tinged black and white of her Kansas dustbowl farm and into the sparkling technicolor fantasy land somewhere over the rainbow, both the filmmakers and Dorothy changed the lives of audiences (both then and now).In the film Dorothy is an orphan whose emotional baggage is her greatest obstacle in life, and on her journey she you can see that she realizes this. A critic by the name of Mark Kermode said it best "Anyone who can refrain from weeping as Dorothy cries "Aunty Em" deserves to be locked in a tower for all eternity" the emotion that Judy Garland displays as Dorothy is amazing we all can feel her pain

In The Wizard of Oz by Victor Fleming, 1939, specifically during the beginning scene, Dorothy was in sync with the setting. Dorothy was in the proper placement of the props around her, adding to the feelings of her reflecting the place she is in. The background eluded to the idea that she is far away from the golden spherical instrument that 's supposed to hold a globe, on the window sill in the background. There 's also an interesting painting below the window sill, it 's a golden band of boxes; this could be the representation of how Dorothy is gonna get to where she 's going, the yellow brick road. However, the crystal ball seems to be the most prominent part of the scene, the contrast of Dorothy 's position enhanced the feeling to the viewer that Dorothy is scared and alone.

After Dorothy wakes up, and as she is helping the Tin Man, the scene once again zooms back out to the Wicked Witch and her crystal, before dissolving back to the group once more as they continue on their

A scene where all these techniques together would be in the scene where Dorothy was about to meet her