"A Sound of Thunder"

Today, we begin to read Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder." In addition to thinking about The Hero's Journey in this text, consider some of the following literary traits:

• the effect of genre on the Hero's Journey
• the importance of a text's title
• an author's tone
• the use of suspense in a short story
• foreshadowing as plot development
• what theme the author is trying to convey

The Hero's Journey: Archetypes and Characters

Yesterday, we talked all about the plot side of the Hero's Journey. Now, it's on to character archetypes.

From the Storybuilder User's Manual, "an archetype is a prototype or model from which something is based. A significant character's role can often be associated with one of these archetypes."

For the main archetypes, check out this explanation video from the awesome YouTube Channel of Gloves and Boots:

Check out this website that describes each of the main archetypes.

For a more detailed list of archetypal characters, situations, and conflicts, check out this resource.

Here is a fun chart from The Boston Globe that illustrates some character archetypes in popular films.

The Hero's Journey

All of us are used to the tired, boring mountain of a plot diagram. The following should look all too familiar:

It's time to UPGRADE that basic plot diagram. Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces in 1949 after appearing on PBS with compelling lectures of the same topic: ALL stories follow the basic plot line with similar characters and events. He went on to label these steps and archetypal characters to create what we now refer to as "The Hero's Journey."

Chris Vogle summarizes Campbell's theory in this paragraph: "Campbell is a mythographer -- he writes about myths. What he discovered in his study of world myths is that THEY ARE ALL BASICALLY THE SAME STORY -- retold endlessly in infinite variation. He discovered that all story-telling, consciously or not, follows the ancient patterns of myth, and that all stories, from the crudest jokes to the highest flights of literature, can be understood in terms of the 'HERO MYTH;' the 'MONOMYTH' whose principles he lays out in the book."

Here is a detailed look at Campbell's Hero's Journey.

And now, let's apply Campbell's terminology to an inverted plot diagram. (Initiation=Rising Action; The Pit=Climax; etc).

We are going to identify these steps in various fiction literature, so keep this chart handy. There are also TONS of resources about the Hero's Journey on the interwebs, so be sure to search Google, Pinterest, Hollywood news, and plenty of college websites to learn and explore more!

Check out the following lesson, "The Hero's Journey: Archetypes and Characters!"