The Hero’s Journey is an archetypal story that is notable in part due to how it is common to practically every culture that has stories. Two stories that are examples of the Hero’s Journey are the epic poem Odyssey, written by Homer in ancient Greece, and the film The Lucky Ones, directed by Neil Burger. Both of these stories are representations of the same subject, soldiers on their journey back home, with the former story being set in ancient mythological Greece and the latter being in contemporary America. Using the Hero’s Journey as a lens to compare the Odyssey and The Lucky Ones, as many of the similarities and differences become apparent as well as how the former influenced the latter. A commonality between the two tales is that both
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The few flaws that Odysseus might seem to have can be explained by the customs of his time and culture, such as telling Polyphemus his true identity, which in ancient Greece would have been dishonorable not to do. Cheaver’s main weakness is an inability to deal with stressful situations, such as when Colee and TK got into a fight, the revelation that his wife wants to have a divorce, leaving him suicidal, and when he finds out that his son needs twenty thousand dollars for college within three weeks. Colee’s flaw is her immaturity, for example, she constantly talks about inappropriate subjects with others, her fighting with some college girls over some mocking and her falling for Randy’s lies. Lastly, TK’s shortcoming stems from his self assuredness, such as when he and Colee get into a fight and his refusal to apologize, him thinking he can continue ubiquitously lying to everyone and when he thought it was a good idea to be arrested and sent to prison to get out of the …show more content…
In the Odyssey, this is done by Calypso, who keeps Odysseus as her lover on her island until he is rescued by Hermes, who also represents the aid of an outside force, another aspect of the Hero’s Journey. In The Lucky Ones, temptation is shown as both the rich woman that Cheaver had sex with and her husband he almost had a threeway with, and as the prostitutes that offered to try and fix TK’s eternally flaccid penis for free, whom he refuses out of nervousness. Soon after this the aid of an outside force is found in The Lucky Ones as well, in the form of a tornado that causes TK and Colee to be pressed up against each other, with TK gets an erection from, his first since he was
The few flaws that Odysseus might seem to have can be explained by the customs of his time and culture, such as telling Polyphemus his true identity, which in ancient Greece would have been dishonorable not to do. Cheaver’s main weakness is an inability to deal with stressful situations, such as when Colee and TK got into a fight, the revelation that his wife wants to have a divorce, leaving him suicidal, and when he finds out that his son needs twenty thousand dollars for college within three weeks. Colee’s flaw is her immaturity, for example, she constantly talks about inappropriate subjects with others, her fighting with some college girls over some mocking and her falling for Randy’s lies. Lastly, TK’s shortcoming stems from his self assuredness, such as when he and Colee get into a fight and his refusal to apologize, him thinking he can continue ubiquitously lying to everyone and when he thought it was a good idea to be arrested and sent to prison to get out of the …show more content…
In the Odyssey, this is done by Calypso, who keeps Odysseus as her lover on her island until he is rescued by Hermes, who also represents the aid of an outside force, another aspect of the Hero’s Journey. In The Lucky Ones, temptation is shown as both the rich woman that Cheaver had sex with and her husband he almost had a threeway with, and as the prostitutes that offered to try and fix TK’s eternally flaccid penis for free, whom he refuses out of nervousness. Soon after this the aid of an outside force is found in The Lucky Ones as well, in the form of a tornado that causes TK and Colee to be pressed up against each other, with TK gets an erection from, his first since he was