2011년 10월 7일 금요일

The Hero’s Journey in Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption


The Hero’s Journey in Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption



10b1 111034 Jonathan Hongsoon Kim

        

         Humans have always enjoyed telling tales. Starting from the dawn of the first civilizations on Earth or perhaps even earlier, societies have passed on stories and legends to later generations; this trend is still present in the modern era in the form of novels, movies, or even bedtime stories millions of parents tell their restless children every night. Within these diverse stories, we can find certain patterns. There are certain events or aspects that seem to appear in one form or another in these stories; there is a certain pattern that the heroes of these stories all seem to take. From Gilgamesh to Bruce Wayne, from Jesus Christ to Little Red Riding Hood, and from Beowulf to Luke Skywalker: these heroes, all in their individual worlds,` travel a path that is known as the Hero’s Journey.

           The hero of Stephen King’s novel Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is no exception. While, of course, there may be a few steps altered or missing from the traditional hero’s saga the overall flow is still observable.

           When trying to analyze the Hero’s Journey in Shawshank Redemption, we run into one initial problem: who is the Hero? There are two main protagonists, Red and Andy, and both of them, though from different perspectives, go through the events that make up the plot. At first glance, it may seem like Andy is the sole hero; Red’s narration is centered on Andy and his actions. However, I believe that the character that actually went through the Hero’s Journey is Red himself. Of course, physically speaking, Red hardly went anywhere; he was confined in Shawshank prison for decades before finally being paroled almost at the end of the novel. Yet we can see that Red has experienced certain changes, particularly in the way he views the world. Thus, I think that Red’s journey is not a physical one, but a process that changed the way he perceived the world and himself.

           The “Ordinary World” that Red lives in could mean many things. It could mean the outside world that Red lived in before coming to Shawshank, it could mean his life before Andy appeared, or it could mean Shawshank life in general. However, I think that the Ordinary World is not a physical world, but rather Red’s mentality of not having much hope. Red was a down-to-earth, slightly pessimistic man who avoided having any high hopes, should they lead to disappointment; this was the world that he lived in prior to meeting Andy. Even when some convicts around him attempted escapes or were paroled, Red did not expect much from his own chances of getting out of Shawshank. He was prepared to live his entire life in prison.

           After “Refusing the Call” of hope several times, Red meets his “Mentor” in the form of Andy Dufresne. Andy, in the eyes of Red, immediately distinguishes himself as “different” from the other convicts. Andy, quite unlike Red, is always hopeful and does not lose this hope. The two become friends and, over the decades they spend together in Shawshank, Red slowly begins to regain hope. The next few steps of the Hero’s Journey are not clearly defined in Red’s story, but eventually, after Andy’s climatic escape, Red starts to believe in the power of hope again.

           Thus Shawshank Redemption is a hero’s tale. It is not one of slaying dragons or saving mankind from alien invaders but of one man’s humble road to regaining hope that he had once lost. Red, after being paroled, completed his Hero’s Journey of regaining hope and used it to write a memoir, spreading his tale of hope to the rest of the world.

In Class Chain Writing

     William Irving lived in the suburbs of Belmont, Massechussetes. Apparntly born without the ability to laugh, cry, or show emotion in any other way, the only time William had ever left his town was when a friend convinced him to watch a parade downtown 3 years ago. He had not enjoyed that experience very much. This story is about that day. (by KHS)
     After one of his friends' suggestion, William decided to travel all over the world to find emotion and to learn how to show emotion. He first went to Japan. He saw some monkey shows but they were not fun at all. He then went to North Korea. He met a fat but small monster there. The monster was weraring sunglasses. (by LKB)
     The monster, named Kim Jung Il, started to make the cheapest jokes that William had ever heard in his life. But somehow, the other people around the monster seemed to be enjoying its strange sense of humor. Bravely, William said to the monster. "Excuse me, but your jokes are not funny." The next moment he woke up, and he found himslef in a dark, confined cell. (by KSM)
     It was his home. It was just all a wild dream! He just dosed off while going to watch the parade. (by KSJ)
     The parade in front of him was just spectacular! Giant dinosaurs waling by, the dinosours playing with an even more giant set of Jenga, and, also, nuclear missiles flying everywhere. It was just awesome, but William couldn't laugh or make an expression about it. So he made a very, very bold move to overcome his inability, a move which he would regret for the rest of his life! (by BSW)
     William, prior to that moment, had convinced himself that his situation was due to some trait in his genes; he thought that he needed a drastic genetic alteration in order to gain access to the human emotions that everyone else could summon so easily. Now, watching himself fail yet again to crack a simple smile, William decided to expose himself completely to the nulcear missiles flying overhead. Surely those missiles would contain enough energy and nulcear influence to affect his genes. He rapidly climbed up one of the oversized Jenga sets that the dinosaurs were enjoying and jumped straight into the path of one near-flying missile.
     In a miraculous coincidence of the quantum orbitals of the atoms that constituted William and the missile, the impact did not cause William to explode into an infinite number of micro-particles. Instead, it gave William the uncanny ability of being able to control each and every one of those particles individually while maintaing a unified consciousness. That meant he could freely alter the shape or position of his body parts with a simple thought or even detatch parts and have them move on their own.
     What the nuclear impact did not do was grant William human expressions.
     Feeling the closest he could manage to the emotion of disappointment, William was to preoccupied to notice his new ability. He walked back to his town and never left it again. (finished by KHS)