Alastair Rosie's Blog, page 9

THE MYTHIC JOURNEY: AN EXAMPLE

MYTHIC ELEMENTS: A TIME TO KILL.

 

In the adaptation of John Grisham’s book A Time To Kill, we see many mythic elements and stages in the Hero’s Journey used skilfully. For those who haven’t seen it, the movie begins with the kidnapping of ten year old Tonya Hailey by Billie Ray Cobb and Pete Willard who then rape and beat her, try to hang her but when that fails they throw her into the creek and leave her to die. Enraged by the thought that they might get off with a light sentence, her father, Carl Lee, hides in the courthouse the night before they are due to face the court and in the morning shoots them both in front of dozens of witnesses. They are both killed and Deputy Looney is also wounded and subsequently loses his leg. The rest of the film revolves around the fight to defend Carl Lee as Jake Brigance faces off against Rufus Buckley as they argue the case before Omar Noose. The case divides Canton, Mississippi when the KKK are resurrected and begin a campaign of terror against Brigance and his legal team. Ultimately Jake will have to face his own shortcomings as he sums up the case for the jury. He convinces the jury to close their eyes while he recounts the kidnap and rape, and then suggests they imagine she is white instead of black. The jury finds him not guilty by reason of insanity and he is set free.
The Ordinary World is introduced with the kidnap and rape of Tonya who in mythical terms represents the child within us all. We are drawn to the brutality and thus when her father assassinates the perpetrators there are few tears because they got what was coming in our minds. The Ordinary World of the Hailey’s is a dysfunctional world where racist whites terrorise the black community without fear of the law. When a black sheriff, Ozzie tries to arrest them for the rape he openly mocks him. Jake’s Ordinary World is also in disarray although it is more subtly put. He is behind on his bills and the practice that his Mentor, Lucien left him isn’t going so well. When he hears of the rape of Tonya it shocks him and when Carl Lee approaches him at night to ask what might happen, Jake suspects his intent and yet even when he tells Carla he doesn’t take her suggestion and warn the police, he goes to bed instead.
Thus the Ordinary World is in crisis. A young black girl has been raped by two white men who will probably get a lenient sentence. A family has been destroyed and while Jake is shocked, he isn’t prepared to disrupt his comfortable world, even if it is dysfunctional. Carl Lee accepts the call to adventure or in this case the call for revenge and Jake refuses it. When Jake witnesses the brutal slaying of Billy Ray and Pete he sees the consequences of refusing the call. He could have stopped this but he baulked at picking up a phone.
Thus we come to one of the primary motivations for Jake, recovering his honour. His other driving force is getting Carl Lee off the murder charge but all through it he is haunted by the thought he could have prevented this. Carl Lee’s initial driving force is spent, he has killed the men who raped his daughter and now his primary motivation is to be proved innocent by reason of insanity.
Thus the Call to Adventure has been accepted by the two main characters and they are facing a formidable opponent in the form of Buckley. Supremely confident, backed by the State and experienced, Jake knows he’s in for the fight of his life. Omar Noose is the other antagonist although not in such an overt way, he snipes at Jake and at times gives way to him. His purpose is to keep the focus on the defendant.
Jake’s Helpers come in the form of Rex, a self confessed, corruptible divorce lawyer and Ellen Roark, a brilliant law student who also happens to be a stunning beauty. Jake refuses Ellen’s offer of help and she tells him he’ll change his mind. He does change his mind but only after his wife and daughter flee the town. Thus Ellen becomes both Helper and Temptress. This element gives the film body and texture in a very real and human way. She comforts and attends to his wounds both physical and emotional. Thus Ellen is also a Shapeshifter, the Shapeshifter in literary terms doesn’t have to undergo a change in physical form, more often than not it’s a psychic or emotional change in perception. Jake’s Mentor, Lucien gives advice but at first refuses to come back as part of the team.
As if Buckley wasn’t a powerful enough Antagonist, Billie Ray’s brother, Freddie Lee contacts the KKK through one of his friends and after recruiting other friends to the cause they are inducted as Klansmen. They begin a campaign of terror against Brigance, which in mythic terms become Tests and Obstacles. First there are the phone calls and then someone tries to plant a bomb at his house, later on his house is burned to the ground. Freddie tries to kill him when he comes out of the court house, attacks Ethel’s husband, which results in him dying of a heart attack, and towards the end kidnaps Ellen, ties her up and leaves her for dead. The NAACP also throw up Obstacles by trying to get Carl Lee to take their lawyer, believing that Jake has no chance of winning it, and at that stage we suspect they’re probably right but Jake faces that test and overcomes it using his lawyerly skills. Buckley has Obstacles as he prosecutes the case.
Jake’s wife also throws up Obstacles because she fears for their lives and resents the fact that he has forgotten about his family and is instead chasing fame. Those are valid fears and yet he manages to overcome them only by removing them from the town. This brings his next Test, Ellen Roark, brilliant, witty and beautiful. She is Helper and Temptress, he needs her but he also wants her, she brings comfort now his wife is gone and yet he manages to get past her temptations but we can see he is faltering. Then his house is burned to the ground and we come to the Ordeal. Everything is gone, even the dog is thought to be dead. Rex hands him plane tickets and tells him to get out and at that point could you blame him? In the Ordeal his old life has died, it’s literally in ashes and yet there is a flicker of hope when the dog reappears. The dog represents the Blessing of the Gods or a Boon. It gives him strength to go further to seize the sword. In this case the sword is the truth and there are still more tests to come. He will almost lose Ellen when she is kidnapped and when he is at his wits end the night before his summation Carla reappears. I liked the footage of her coming out of the darkness. He reaches for his gun thinking it’s a threat. There is a wild storm outside and she has driven all the way in the rain to reach him. She tells him she’s sorry and she understands why he took the case. They embrace and we have what is termed the Sacred Marriage or Union with the Goddess, even though in the movie they are married. He admits he took the case to forgive himself for not calling the sheriff and it is this reminder and her love that drives him to the jailhouse to confront Carl Lee and admit his weakness. We now come to the crux of the matter when Carl Lee reveals his true colours.
He tells Jake that although he is his lawyer, he is also the enemy by virtue of his pale skin. He has been chosen because he is the enemy. It’s why he refused the NAACP because he wanted to prove that justice was colour blind. He takes the role of the Mentor and gives Jake vital information. He must make the jury see the case through his eyes. He must make the all-white jury feel Carl Lee’s pain. It is Jake’s apotheosis when he finally finds what he has been seeking all the way through the trial, the truth. He states it is incumbent on lawyers to seek the truth and to live it.
As a result of his conversation with Carl Lee, he takes the jury on a mental reenactment of the kidnap, rape and attempted murder and then turns it all around with the words, ‘now imagine she’s white.” He walks away and leaves them to consider what they might have done in similar circumstances. This is identifying with the other, the darkness in ourselves that might even do the same if we were pushed. Lucien has withdrawn from the trial and waits to see what his protege will do but at the summation he makes an appearance just to witness it.
When Carl Lee is found not guilty by reasons of insanity the KKK are arrested along with a corrupt Deputy and Carl Lee is reunited with his family. The final scene has Jake and his family arriving at Carl Lee’s place for a cookout. He explains that he thought it was “time our daughters played together.” Jake has become a more well rounded, mature human being, he is Master of Two Worlds. Carl Lee has his freedom, justice can be colour blind, Roark has discovered that while victory is sweet it can also be bitter. Lucien has triumphed because his protege has overcome the odds. It’s very much a coming of age movie because Jake is all at sea, desperate for Lucien, the father figure to rescue him. The father rightfully says no to his request and watches anxiously to see if his ‘son’ will be a man or remain a child.
I hoped you enjoyed this journey through the mythic symbolism of A Time To Kill. If you think I’ve missed some symbols or disagree with some of my assumptions feel free to comment.

Part 13 The Summary

THE HERO’S JOURNEY A SUMMARY

Here’s where we put it all together in one short article. There are books out there that delve into the Hero’s Journey and probably do a much better job than this series but here we’ll do it in bullet form as it’s something I find works for me. To reiterate what I said earlier, the stages don’t have to come in this exact order and some might be dropped out completely. You’re not following a formula you’re telling a story and this is something I can’t emphasize strongly enough. Do not think about the money you might earn. Do not try to cash in on the success of whatever novel or movie has inspired your story. This last point is very important if you understand that the marketing program that went into Twilight was months if not years in the planning and your vampire book won’t cause the publishers to leap on you, they’ll probably run the other way.

Just tell the story. You are the storyteller and if you don’t tell the story the way you want it, then it dies with you. Seriously. If the unthinkable happened and you wind up dead tomorrow, even if you’ve left your work to a friend or partner, even they can’t tell the story the way you would have wanted.

With that in mind let’s look at the Hero’s Journey as a recipe and without stretching the roast dinner recipe too far, you need several things for a roast dinner. You need meat or another substitute if you’re a vegetarian. You need vegetables and you need a gravy or sauce. A roast dinner is a good analogy because although you’re limited by certain food groups, there are many foods within those food groups you can use. Your vegetarian loaf may not have meat in it but it’s still a roast dinner, so let’s begin.

The Ordinary World. This is where your story starts, the ordinary world can be like our world, a city like New York or Glasgow or it might be an alien world like Tatooine. It may be functioning perfectly until it’s rudely disturbed or it may be dysfunctional like the world in Apocalypse Now. The ripple in the pond might be faint or a violent disruption. The Ordinary World is where you introduce your reader to this world, lay out some of the rules and we get to meet some of the cast. You don’t need to tell us everything and it’s probably best if you don’t reveal all, just tell us enough to get us to the next stage.

The Call to Adventure. In Star Wars IV, or the first Star Wars if you hated the other three movies, the call to adventure is rescuing the princess. It’s a definite summons from one character to another or it might be an event like a brutal murder that propels your hero forward. It might be the chance to retrieve a rare artefact or treasure or finding a murderer but it needs to be expressed in some shape or form whether vocally or through action.

Refusal of the Call. This doesn’t have to an actual refusal although it often is but it is a place where you outline the risks. You’ve got the Ordinary World, the Call to Adventure or Threat and now you lay out the consequences if they accept the call and what will happen if they refuse it. If it’s a crime story then perhaps your hero has to accept the call if she’s a detective, it is her job but you still need to have some doubt and hesitation, so lay out the risks.

Meeting the Mentor. Your hero might have accepted the challenge and now they need some help because otherwise they might not make it past the first hurdle. Your mentor might be a new character who’s brought in or it might be new information. A clue that gets them started, an old mentor from the past, a wife, husband, a child. You wouldn’t send someone out to build a house without making sure they had a hammer and nails. Here’s where you can equip your hero and this stage can be repeated later on as in Fellowship of the Ring.

Crossing the First Threshold. This is the point of no return. It could be a place where you give the reader and the characters time to reflect, it’s the last time to look before you leap. Is the parachute packed properly? Are we at the right spot? Is there something we’ve forgotten? In storytelling it could be the point an ally or mentor dies. This is often utilised to good effect because the hero has some motivation for carrying on and we want to see justice done.

Tests, Allies and Enemies. This can be as long as you want and the tests, allies and enemies can be as varied as your imagination. Your hero has crossed the First Threshold and are now in a Special World. It’s your task to throw whatever you can at them to try and stop them and introduce characters and situations that can help them. It’s usually heading towards the middle of the book or the end of Act Two in movies. Make sure each test is harder than the previous one, you’re drawing the reader along slowly and if you’ve done it right they’ll follow. Your allies can become a crucial part of the story or perhaps they drift in and out again. It’s this part also where the plot begins to fill out and we find out more information about the villains, the heroes and the overall threat. If you’ve got more information about your world you can have fireside scenes where a mentor imparts more information to the hero.

The Approach to the Inmost Cave. This is where your hero has gone through the tests and we’re gearing up for the big one. It’s where you up the ante on your approach to the bad guy’s hideout or maybe a fortress along the way. Your hero may gain more equipment, a new helper or some new information.

The Ordeal. In a book this is the central tent pole that stops your plot from sagging in the middle and in film it is usually the end of Act Two. You have a supreme ordeal, a test that might demand everything of your hero. You may have your hero die metaphorically at least, perhaps they’re plunged into the water and we have a few minutes to ponder if you’ve done the unthinkable and killed your hero. Then they emerge, hopefully. If they don’t and you’ve done a Hitchcock move, as in Psycho, then you need to have a second hero in the wings to take the story forward. It’s doable but do with caution as killing your hero at this stage can kill your story as well.

The Reward. The reward is the prize they’ve been seeking. It could have been discussed earlier or it might be something else that no one considered until the ordeal, a new prize. Perhaps the original ordeal was a red herring tossed out by the villain. This is the place where you reward your hero or heroes, they’ve completed a truly horrendous test. You confirm their hero status and give them a reward before you start them on the road back.

The Road Back. Now your hero has the reward it’s time to head back towards home and it might be an actual physical journey or it could be a psychic change as in When Harry Met Sally, a realisation but you’re heading for a new crisis, a last battle or a second death. Your hero has survived the Ordeal but they’re not out of the woods yet.

The Resurrection. This is also known as the Second Threshold, the Second Death, or the Climax and in Bond movies is where the villain tries one last time to kill Bond and destroy the world. It could also be a final confrontation between a man and woman who’ve become estranged. This is where your hero has to prove once and for all that she is worthy of the title Hero. You kill your villain here or if you’re writing a series at least kill his right hand man.

The Return with the Reward. This is the part where you tidy up loose ends. Your hero has returned with something to benefit mankind as a whole, their local community or it could be a personal triumph as in Hope Floats. It might be a sacred marriage or it could be an ending that leaves us with more questions.

These stages don’t have to be in that particular order and some can be discarded if you feel confident enough about doing so. You can even repeat some stages like Refusing the Call. In The Terminator, Sarah refuses the call twice and has to be yanked over the threshold by Rhys, the first time in the night club, the second time at the police station. You can vary the tempo and thrust according to the rules of your world. As mentioned last week it’s not a formula, simply a list of check points or guide posts. The Hero’s Journey works because right now sitting with your work in progress in front of you, you’ve started out on a Hero’s Journey. Your goal is to publish your work and there are all kinds of tests and nasty surprises along the way. So go on ahead and revisit your story, sketch out your stages on scene cards or drop the stages into a document and outline each scene beforehand. The method will depend on your own personal preference. Some folks are plotters and like to have it all sketched out and some write by the seat of their pants. Both ways are actually right and I’ve used both methods to write novels. Last month I went back to the plotting methodology for this vampire novel.

Your quest awaits and you are the hero of your own story. I wish you all the very best in your writing career and thank you for going through this quest with me. I’ve certainly applied some of these lessons to my own work in progress so this series has helped me get a grip on the Hero’s Journey. So what are you waiting for? Your quest awaits you.

Part Twelve The Reward

Firstly I would like to apologise to any who have followed this series for the month long break. I was involved in Nanowrimo and I did manage to complete the first full draft of my vampire novel, so hats off to me! But it was a hard slog and I will share more of that in the next few weeks. But with all that writing, a total of 110,000 words (I’m not counting the 42,000 I wrote before November) I was understandably too tired to blog. Anyway, enough grovelling and back slapping and onto part twelve, The Triumphant Return.

Enjoy!

Alastair Rosie.

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN

There are two scenes in the movie version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King that illustrate the Triumphant Return. The first is when the hobbits are all united again and various characters make their reappearance as well. The second is when Aragorn meets Arwen and the two are joined as one, Aragorn then greets the hobbits in full view of his subjects and gets down on one knee. This is a signal for all the people to do the same thing, acknowledging the debt the kingdoms of men owe to the Halflings.

It’s the Reward, an acknowledgement that your hero has returned with a boon, a reward or in the case of hunter gatherer societies, meat for the tribe. You need a reward of some sort. Your hero may have been raped, beaten, humiliated, gone through a dozen tests, experienced near death a couple of times, killed minions and the arch villain, and returned with some reward. It’s amazing she’s still alive and we need to show our appreciation. She has done what we have dreamed about and it’s also the time when you can relax, stretch your fingers, do a little happy dance and reward your hero for all her hard work.

There are two basic endings here. One is the closed circle so popularised in American film and novels where the hero returns to the same world with a reward for the community or a personal reward like in Notting Hill where William and Anna get married and we see a very pregnant Anna in the final scene in that private garden. The garden was shown earlier in the darkness where she kissed him for the second time thus launching them both on a journey. Now it’s in full daylight, there is a carnival atmosphere and they are both contented.

The other ending is the open ending like in The Brave One. Jodie Foster’s character, Erika Bain has killed the murderers and been given a chance to escape by Mercer, who should in real life have arrested her. But Erika is scarred. She returns to the same old world to start again but she knows that it’s a changed world. We are left with questions. Were her actions right and honourable or did she become like the villains? This kind of ending is popular in Europe, Britain, America and Asia where there is a general understanding that life isn’t so simple. They decry the Hollywood ending and personally I feel they do the Hollywood ending a disservice because we all want the happy ever after ending. To be blunt, there is nothing wrong with the happy ever after ending. It’s not trite, childish or silly, it leaves people feeling satisfied, happy and content. They feel it was worth going through this journey you plotted so ingeniously. Personally I quite like the closed ending even if I’m writing a series, which would lend itself to an open ending, it ties off the loose ends or most at least, and leaves the reader with a sense of completeness. The first Twilight book did that admirably, we left Bella and Edward together and she had begun her journey to become a vampire, but it could easily have ended right there and then if Stephanie Meyer had wanted.

How you end the book depends on whether you want to leave the reader feeling as if good can triumph over evil or if you want to leave the reader with more questions. There are no right and wrong ways to do this, my only suggestion is that you are consistent with your world, and that is one of the classic mistakes in fiction. You need to know enough of your world to be consistent with the rules you’ve set in place. You can twist the laws of physics all you want but you must be consistent with the new laws. Don’t bring in some alien civilisation to rescue your heroes if you haven’t foreshadowed them earlier on. Don’t introduce some prince who was really masquerading as a pauper if you haven’t set it up earlier. One book I read recently had a brilliantly constructed world, a great retelling of the Hero Cycle but right at the end the author has the hero making a choice that is so left field you felt cheated. It’s treating your reader like an idiot. Readers are very sophisticated and will pick up on that very quickly.

In the example of The Brave One, having Erika walking out with her head held high, proud of what she has done would be inconsistent because all the way through the movie we see the vigilante she has become unravelling her personality. She is becoming the villain. To suddenly turn around and have her feeling as if she is honourable might please on a superficial level but we’d be left with the feeling that there’s something not right here. To modify the familiar Star Trek line, It’s story telling but not as we know it.

One bad example of an open ended ending is in Basic Instinct at the final love scene, where the camera drops below the bed and we see the ice pick. It was cheap and an attempt to get away from the Hollywood ending when in actual fact we didn’t need to be left in doubt. We learned who the killer was and I was left wondering why is that pick there in the first place? It’s left there to try and instil doubt in the viewers mind and I felt in that sense it failed. In storytelling lingo it’s called the ‘twist in the tail’ ending.

This kind of end works better if you’re writing a series or in a tv serial because you’re carrying on the story. In a single book or movie that is supposed to be a complete story in itself use the twist in the tail ending with caution. In other words don’t just throw it in to make it more dramatic. Basic Instinct was dramatic enough without that final shot of the ice pick.

Many closed circle endings have a marriage or a joining of the two as in Hope Floats where we see Birdee and Justin at the fair and later on returning to her home. Titanic has an older Rose tossing the Heart of the Ocean into the ocean to symbolise that the quest was not about finding a jewel and becoming millionaires but the relationship born on the Titanic that inspired her to become all that Jack wished for her, we see pictures of her riding horses and doing things that women weren’t expected to do. Finally we return to the Titanic in her dreams and Jack is there to greet her to the applause of all who perished, it might have been criticised by viewers outside of America but that final Hollywood ending was probably needed to finish it off.

However you don’t have to have your hero and heroine going off into the sunset. Shane rides off alone in what was a staple of Westerns. In Proof of Life, Crowe’s character rebuffs Alice’s overtures because he’s recognised that for all his faults, her husband is a good man. This is the way it’s supposed to end and she doesn’t want it that way. It’s consistent with the world we’ve been invited into at the start. To have her leave with him is cheating the audience. How would we feel if Lara Croft ended up with one of her side kicks? It doesn’t feel right just thinking about it. Likewise the ending in The Horse Whisperer. To have her going off with the cowboy might elicit sighs from the audience but it’s not consistent with the character arcs that have played out.

The triumphant return may merely be a recognition that your hero was right all along. In A Time to Kill, Carl Lee is found innocent and Brigance and his family drive over to his place to join in the celebration and Brigance reworks Carl Lee’s line uttered in a prison cell, “I thought it was time our kids learned to play together.” The rich white successful lawyer has recognised why Carl Lee picked him as his lawyer, because he was the enemy. The enemy had to find him not guilty of murdering two white boys.

In AVP, Alex is left with a boon of a very physical type, the spear of a Predator and the recognition of an alien species who have hunted humans for sport. It is a salute and although it’s fleeting, the ending leaves us feeling satisfied. In the movie Outbreak, the cure for the virus is found, arguably I think it was all too soon and a bit unbelievable but it worked for the most part.

The important lesson to take away from this is your choice of ending. The closed circle or the open ended question? What you do must resonate within your world. Whether it’s the drama of a courthouse in New York or an alien world in a galaxy far far away, the ending has to be consistent with your world. Surprise endings jolt the reader especially if there’s been no real foreshadowing, it’s disrespecting your reader because like a magician you’ve pulled the wool over their eyes and pulled an elephant out of your hat instead of a rabbit.

Look back over the Hero’s Journey in your work. How can you reward your hero? If you want an open-ended question, something for us to consider, what is the fundamental question? In the movie The Kingdom we are left with the exact two statements from hero and villain, “we’re going to kill them all.” The question raised relates directly to the 911 wars and the struggle between East and West, with the unasked question being do we have to kill each other off? Was it all worthwhile? One villain is dead but there are many more to take his place.

Look at endings to movies and books. Could they have been better? I can guarantee they could have been better if certain things had been changed. Your list will be different to mine of course. Now go back to your story and perhaps sketch out different endings. One will resonate with you and others will feel odd like something’s missing and that’s a crucial element in storytelling. What feels right is probably right and what feels wrong is wrong. It’s like a headache, the pain is a symptom that something is wrong, probably too much coffee and not enough food, but look back over your story and decide on the best way to reward your hero or the questions you want to leave for the reader and only you can decide the answer to that question.

The Hero’s Journey is not a blueprint for success, nor is it a formula. It’s a set of guide posts and there are plenty of stories out there that use part of the journey but skip other stages or do them in a different order. You’re not constrained by The Hero’s Journey; it’s a form that resonates with the real world. Your personal hero’s journey began on your first day of school and ended with graduating from college. Another hero’s journey might be meeting your partner, falling in love and getting married. As mentioned earlier on, the Hero’s Journey is something we take part in every day of our lives in some form or another and part of what we experience when we read of another hero’s journey is but an echo of our own search for meaning and fulfilment. The books put out by Harlequin may not be particularly well written, but they are selling the dream that somewhere out there is a special soulmate, your other half. That’s why the Harlequin enterprise works so consistently and so successfully in spite of the fact it’s been spurned by literary and mainstream critics. Harlequin understand the power of the dream.

Next week we will put it all together in summarised form and follow up with a couple of articles pulling apart different stories to identify the stages I’ve been talking about. For those who’ve followed this series through to the end I would like to thank you for your patience. Certainly for me this felt like a Hero’s Journey as I do have other writing tasks as well as a full time job that doesn’t involve any writing at all. Thank you to those who responded with comments and I do apologise if I haven’t responded quickly, my life would be so much better if each day had 48 hours.

Until next Sunday, I wish you a productive writing week and we’ll pause for one more look at The Hero’s Journey.

 

Other examples of the Return.

Sarah Connor in The Terminator where she stops off for gas and we have her recording her memories on a tape recorder and that final picture, which survives in the future.

The final goodbye in The Pelican Brief and this one didn’t have our two heroes going off into the sunset but a very definitive goodbye.

Dances With Wolves and Stands With a Fist riding away from the camp and the final farewell in Dances with Wolves, here they are both together and John Dunbar has become the Master of Two Worlds.

And finally for all the romantics, the ending in Pretty Woman where our hero climbs up the ladder, proving he has overcome his fear of heights and brings his pretty woman back down to his world, which is symbolised by the limousine.