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Myth
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings follows the basic concepts and structures of classical mythology, including having heroes who embark on journeys of self-discovery, and those journeys of self-discovery are often thrust upon them. For example, Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey did not want to get thrown off course after the Trojan War. It was Athena and Poseidon's fighting that led to Odysseus's fateful storm that caused him to flit from island to island over the course of about twenty years. He learned a lot on the journey, but it was painful at times. Similarly, Frodo Baggins is thrust into a situation in which he goes on a long journey. It is as if he is at the mercy of the gods, but ultimately he is the keeper of his own fate. The other themes in Lord of the Rings that are akin to mythology include the theme of death and rebirth. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo undergoes a major personal and spiritual transformation as a death and rebirth symbol. This is similar to the way gods like Osiris and Jesus die and are reborn, and through this experience have a lesson to teach to humanity.
In Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins...
Joseph Campbell talks about the stages of the hero's journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The hero first receives the call to adventure, and resists the call. This is an integral part of The Lord of the Rings, as Peter Jackson spends much time developing the resistance in Bilbo Baggins's character. Hobbits are inherently resistant to change, and they prefer the comfortable life in the shire. The discomfort of change is part of the hero's journey. Also integral to the hero's journey is the aspect of supernatural aid. In Homer's Odyssey, for example, the goddess Athena is the spiritual aid that guides (but does not interfere with) Odysseus. In The Lord of the Rings, an unseen force or guide protects Bilbo Baggins. Framed as a narrative of good vs. evil, there is no actual god or demon in The Lord of the Rings, only absolute forces that can have influence or sway over individual actors. The character of Golem is an example of a character who is weak and easily swayed, but is morally neutral. However, Bilbo does have the positive guidance of Gandalf the wizard, who represents the sort of…
Works Cited
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato: New World Library, 2008.
Homer. Odyssey.
Jackson, Peter. The Lord of the Rings. Feature Film. 2001.
He has incredible powers and strength, and out of all the many ways villains try to hurt him, they always fail because in the end, what can hurt him is a piece of a rock. Batman, as Bruce Wayne, has powerful lineage, just the Greek heroes. He may not be descended from the gods themselves, but there still exists a comparable mythology around him. His parents, but particularly his father,
"Yeats's flight into fairyland begins in his early childhood with Celtic folklore, 'the chief influence of [his] youth,' and climaxes in his early twenties with the 1888 publication of his first book" (Ben-Merre 2008). Yeats was commissioned to "gather and record the fairy and folk tales of the Irish peasantry" in what eventually became Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (Foster 76). "The collection includes descriptions of
The absurdity in Monty Python comedy sketches seem like a philosophical cousin to Albert Camus. Likewise, Camus is like a distant relative of Buddha. Buddhism asks the individual to cease striving and desiring everything and anything -- including enlightenment itself. Life is suffering, says the Buddha, a concept that clearly reflects the punishment of Sisyphus. The root cause of suffering is not in the punishment, though, it is the desire
..." The hymn also follows the general creation myth of Genesis, a staple in the Judeo mythology. Like the Genesis story, in the Hymn of Aton, the myth states that God is the one who gave speech, races, land and people. In essence, according to the hymn, the sun is the giver of all life, which makes sense as it is the sun's light that gives the means to sustaining
Discussing myth can help bring these things to light. Myth can also broaden our view from introspection to an examination of the workings of our society and culture. As already mentioned, our civilization can be seen as a continuum from the Ancient Greeks to the modern day. This is one way in which myth can help o explain our world -- understanding the Greeks from whom many of our ideas
Myth of the First Amendment The concept of "Big Brother" surveying all our actions and censoring what we hear and what we know is something that goes against the very conception of American society. The centuries old fear of control motivates the people such that they believe in the ideology of freedom of speech over anything else. The First Amendment to us, is right up there with all the we hold