In this class, we have been reading many stories involving numerous different characters and plots. Some of the stories we have read include Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, “The Demon Lover”, “My Mother Never Worked”, and more. While reading these stories, we studied two different literary elements: characterization and archetypes/the hero’s journey. The stories where we focused on characterization were The Canterbury Tales, “Rocking Horse Winner”, “The Demon Lover”, and “My Mother Never Worked”. The story where we focused on archetypes and the hero’s journey was Beowulf.
The first literary element that we studied was characterization. Characterization is the step by step process of the creation/construction of …show more content…
When studying archetypes, we focused heavily on the epic Beowulf, as it has many archetypes throughout its plot. Archetypes we encountered while reading Beowulf include the devil figure, the hero, haven vs wilderness, and much more. The devil figure of the epic was Grendel. This can be seen in the text when the narrator says “Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend” when talking about Grendel. The hero of the epic was Beowulf. He is the protagonist of the story, which can be seen throughout the epic when he is battling the many monsters to save the people. The haven vs wilderness archetype can be seen throughout the epic as well. In the epic, Herot is viewed as the haven, while the swamps and caverns were seen as the wilderness. The haven is safe, but there are many dangers in the wilderness. In addition to studying the many general archetypes, we also studied the hero’s journey. We studied the hero’s journey by completing an assignment where we found all the steps of the hero’s journey from multiple different films. Something intriguing we learned is that in almost all movies involving a hero, there is some form of the hero’s journey in them. I found this to be fascinating, as I did not notice it before we had studied
The first literary element that we studied was characterization. Characterization is the step by step process of the creation/construction of …show more content…
When studying archetypes, we focused heavily on the epic Beowulf, as it has many archetypes throughout its plot. Archetypes we encountered while reading Beowulf include the devil figure, the hero, haven vs wilderness, and much more. The devil figure of the epic was Grendel. This can be seen in the text when the narrator says “Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend” when talking about Grendel. The hero of the epic was Beowulf. He is the protagonist of the story, which can be seen throughout the epic when he is battling the many monsters to save the people. The haven vs wilderness archetype can be seen throughout the epic as well. In the epic, Herot is viewed as the haven, while the swamps and caverns were seen as the wilderness. The haven is safe, but there are many dangers in the wilderness. In addition to studying the many general archetypes, we also studied the hero’s journey. We studied the hero’s journey by completing an assignment where we found all the steps of the hero’s journey from multiple different films. Something intriguing we learned is that in almost all movies involving a hero, there is some form of the hero’s journey in them. I found this to be fascinating, as I did not notice it before we had studied