Revision Plan

My two strengths are that I have a good topic because it's easy for me to write about, and also that my first part is pretty good because it's descriptive.

I need to work on making it flow by transitioning between paragraphs better, and I also need to make it all relate better by adding more details in my later paragraphs.

Vogler 3

This section explains the psychological and dramatic functions of each of the remaining archetypes—the threshold guardian, the herald, the shapeshifter, the shadow, the ally, and the trickster. The threshold guardian embodies the external, physical obstacles and the internal psychological obstacles a hero must face. A threshold guardian’s dramatic function is to test the hero, which in many cases actually aids the hero. A herald brings the message of a need for change, which in turn motivates the hero to get on with the adventure. Characters have the shapeshifting quality to maintain an internal balance; this archetype brings suspense and doubt to a story. The shadow represents repressed feelings and brings drama to the story. There are many different types of allies, but they all in some way or another humanize heroes and add extra dimensions to their personalities. Finally, a trickster’s main functions are to put things in perspective and many times provide comic relief.

            I liked that in this section Vogler didn’t just rely on examples from film to support his points; this time he used circumstances that really happened in history or that regularly occur in everyday life. For example when explaining how the threshold guardian tests a hero, he uses a scenario where an individual makes a positive change in himself or herself but others resist. This tests the hero’s resolve, resulting in making the hero stronger. I like this example because I can imagine myself as that ordinary person in an everyday situation instead of trying to imagine myself in an alternate world or as someone with extraordinary talents.

            I liked how in this section I could easily find each archetype in my own life. I see threshold guardians and heralds in my day-to-day challenges, the herald alerts me of my challenge that is brought to me by my threshold guardian. Perhaps a syllabus acts as herald informing me of what homework I must do, while the work involved in doing the homework acts as my threshold guardian. People change with regards to their personalities and moods all the time, in these people I see a shapeshifter. Luckily I don’t often see the shadow archetype in my daily life, but I have definitely “taken over by the shadow” and done things that I later doubted or felt guilty about. Lastly, my friends are of course my allies, and in them I also see traits of a trickster.

 

Q1: How can you relate these archetypes to people in your own life?

Q2: How do these traits feed off of one another?

Vogler 2

These sections explained what archetypes are and described two major archetypes: the hero and the mentor. According to Vogler an archetype is not definite and attached to one character, instead it is only a temporary function that is performed by one of the characters to move the story along. Vogler goes on to describe the archetypes of the hero and the mentor with respect to each one's psychological function and dramatic function in a story. A hero's psychological function is the ego and the psychological task is to find wholeness through integrating all the different archetypes parts and finally becoming the self (this is what the mentor embodies). The hero's dramatic functions are providing a window into the story, learning, giving action to the story, and performing some act of sacrifice (the hero embodies self-sacrifice). As I said before, the mentor is the self personified, this means that he is a whole person that has probably gone through the hero's journey to reach this completeness. A mentor's dramatic function is to teach, protect, and give heroes gifts (whether material things, advice, a conscience, etc.).

Once again I felt like Vogler wasn't specific enough because his definitions of mentor and hero are so vague. He explains each one's archetype well and specifically; then, within the explanation of the archetype, he includes too many different types. For example there is the Hero archetype, the hero can either be willing or unwilling, inside of those types are different kinds of willing and unwilling heroes (anti-hero, loner hero, etc.). To me, the mentor archetype is even more vague. First, there is the overall mentor archetype. Next, inside the archetype are varying types of mentors such as: mentor as a teacher, a gift giver, a conscience, a sexual initiator, a fallen mentor, a comic mentor, etc. I think there are way to many, and that once again the author uses all the types to cover his ass so that he is right instead of making the readers/analyzers bend the definition and make the connection themselves. I do, however, like how he explains the archetypes as masks. The archetypes are not specific to each character but instead to each role that the characters play. He says that this can produce hybrids such as the hero-trickster; I agree with this because, with more complex characters, one archetype couldn't define their function to the story.

While reading this I began to notice that the author has a valid point when he writes about the archetypal figures of fairy tales (the wolf, hunter, stepmother, etc.); I can see that there are definitely stereotypical people put into the different archetypes. He says that there are now more modern archetypes like "Whore with the Heart of Gold" and "Arrogant West Point Lieutenant". I think the setting is modern, but the archetypes are still the same; the "Whore with the Heart of Gold" is just like Cinderella if you take away the job title. I've really started to realize that many of the new movies I see are the same plots and characters as stories from hundreds of years ago, just with different names and locations.

Questions:

1. Because the mentor is the Self (contains all parts) can it be a hybrid with another archetype?

2. Since the archetypes are like masks, can the characters "wear" both at one time?

Vogler

This section of The Writer's Journey talks about the format  of most books and just stories in general: the hero's journey. The journey consists of three different acts: separation, descent and initiation, and return. Within those three acts are a total of 12 stages: 1) ordinary world, 2) call to adventure, 3) refusal of the call, 4) meeting with the mentor, 5) crossing the first threshold, 6) tests, allies, enemies, 7) approach to the innermost cave, 8) ordeal, 9) reward, 10) the road back, 11) resurrection, and 12) return with the elixir. The author goes on to explain each stage and gives examples from films. He admits that not every story contains all the stages and that these stages don't necessarily have to occur in a particular order.

I really liked how the author seems to try to fit everyone's taste. For example in his examples he incorporates a variety of types of movies; they range from comedies such as Beverly Hills Cop to classics such as An Officer And A Gentleman. The wide range makes his argument more believable to me because it can apply to any circumstance. On the other hand the stages are pretty vague and by saying not all of them need to be used or need to be in a particular order lets him off the hook and makes me less impressed.

The only way I could really think of applying the author's ideas was to think about them in relation to all the movies I have seen recently. I realized that most of the ones I thought of as really bad were the ones that lacked more of Vogler's stages. What's more, the ones I regard as good contained more, though I found them in different orders. After reading this, many movies and stories are kind of ruined for me, they now seem a lot less original. On the other hand, I'm now more impressed with the writers and directors who can make a movie or story seem so different.

1. How does his setup differ from Campbell's?

2. Does this just work for fiction or for all types of writing (analytic and persuasive for example)?

My Childhood Hero

My childhood hero was Doug Funnie from the cartoon series Doug. My favorite quality of his was a wildly overactive imagination. Whenever Doug went off into his daydreams he would become an older, cooler, alter ego of himself like Quailman the superhero, Smash Adams the secret agent or Race Canyon the Indiana Jones-like hero. I'm similar to this character because I am extremely clumsy which, like Doug, has always gotten me into sticky situations. Along with teaching viewers an assortment of morals, Doug inspires his audience to expand their imagination through writing and art. I'm not going to lie, I definitely tried to start a journal because he made it look like so much fun.

Doug's first episode