Comparing The Alchemist And The Odyssey: A Personal Hero's Journey

Introduction Throughout our lives society shapes whom we are and how we act, through this we are forced to assume roles based on how others view and perceive us. Both through our close friends and family and the broader media and society, these stereotypes and attitudes from which we develop into can both be good and bad. It is through these expectations and social pressures that greatness can be developed in people, but is also though these expectations great evil and cruelty can be developed within people. Throughout Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North the reader is presented with two distinct and contrasting characters of ‘Dorrigo’ Evans and [First Name] Nakamura.

Odysseus, hero in the Odyssey, is a misplaced soldier trying to find his way back to Ithaca where his wife and son await. The author, Homer, narrates Odysseus as a hero doing anything and everything to get home years after the Trojan War came to an end. While Moana is a sheltered teenager who has never been allowed to go past the reef. But when her island is hit with disease, going past the reef is one of the many obstacles she must face to return the heart of Te Fiti to restore her island. Throughout their journeys, both heroes, Odysseus and Moana, attempt to ensure their voyage home, despite every possible force working against them,

Marina Gorbenko HRS 119-Classical Mythology M. Pinkerton 16 May 2016 Bonus Reading Response: Homer’s Odyssey In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus, is introduced as a classic hero. However, through his odyssey, the audience finds Odysseus to be much more than an everyday hero. While other heroes relied on their strength and ability in battle, Odysseus, while also having the skill of all of the other warriors, relies heavily on his cunning when faced with obstacles.

“The Odyssey,” by Homer, outlines the journey of Odysseus after the Trojan War. Odysseus is the king of Ithaca, who is summoned to fight in the Trojan War as a fine leader. The “Hero’s Journey” represents the path, usually taken by the hero of a story, of personal change and accomplishment. Odysseus from “The Odyssey” goes through this journey throughout the epic because many features from the “Hero’s Journey” are portrayed in “The Odyssey.” A few major milestones in the hero’s journey are the Call to Adventure, the Tests and Supreme Ordeals, and the Master of the Two Worlds.

In our own journeys, we have come across difficult moments where we just felt like stopping simply because of reasons like afraid of failing and the anxieties of not being well prepared. At times like that, it is where we get help from people around us to prepare ourselves for what is about to come. In the 3 stories we had read and watched in this past month, The Alchemist, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Odyssey, they all contained a similarity; a cycle of a hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is a cycle where the initiate travels into the unknown, going through a similar yet different cycle that every hero goes through, accomplishing their journey. Throughout their journeys, the 3 heroes had stumbled and fallen along the way, however, due

The archetypes of the Hero and Hero’s Journey are repeated across many works of literature which involve the development and maturation of a previously immature character. In Homer’s The Odyssey, the characterization of Odysseus fits the hero archetype. Like a typical hero, he faces many tests and challenges on his journey, but unlike a typical hero his greatest challenge is not to defeat a monster but to reunite with his wife. He is cunning and a good strategist, making him similar to but also very different from Bilbo Baggins, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Whether it be a movie or novel, women are commonly portrayed as objects of beauty and the weaker gender. It is a typical stereotype that women are weak and men are strong; women are made to serve men. However, Homer’s The Odyssey is different; the epic poem proves that women can not only be manipulative, but that they can also be powerful and often stronger than men. Women in this epic poem have several roles like being interventions throughout Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan War.

A hero is someone who is able to suffer while someone else is happy. They are both spirited and courageous. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily is a young girl who shot her mother accidentally when she was only four. Her father abused her on a weekly basis as a result. With this Lily felt ashamed and unloved.

The Heroes Journey, identified by American scholar Joseph Campbell, is a pattern of narrative that describes the typical adventure of the main hero, whether that be a fiction or nonfiction hero. The first step is the call to adventure, where something shakes up the hero’s current situation and the hero starts experiencing change. Consequently, this theory is also applied to the fictional hero Odysseus in The Odyssey and the real-life hero Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights activist. In The Odyssey, Odysseus embarks on a 10-year voyage from Troy to Ithaca and encounters many monsters along the way including a gigantic Cyclops described as “…a brute so huge, he seemed no man at all…” (9 89-90).

Joseph Campbell, the discoverer of the hero 's journey, explicates how all the adventures and stories of heroes’, within every culture, follow the same idea and similar stages. The hero’s journey follows the basis of the hero setting out for departure, encountering a crisis, most commonly resulting in a victory, and returning home changed or transformed, having to adapt to their new perception of the world. The Odyssey, written by Homer, follows the journey of Odysseus on his effort to return home. Odysseus begins his adventure by setting off to Troy to engage, with the Greeks, in the Trojan War, and when the war is won, he faces difficulty making his way back home to Ithaca and his family. Similarly, T’Challa, hero of Wakanda, also so known as black panther, experiences challenges with defending his throne and nation from an outsider

Santiago then tells the alchemist: “My heart is a traitor. It doesn’t want me to go on.” The alchemist replied with a smart answer and said “That makes sense. Naturally, it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.” A fear of uncertainty is what Santiago is feeling and he worries he’ll lose everything he’s accomplished so far.

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, on June 1642, in the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathered to witness the punishment of a young woman, Hester Prynne. She has been found guilty of adultery and must wear a scarlet A on her dress as a sign of shame. Despite her mistakes, she was a classic independent hero to herself and her daughter. She works through the six stages of a hero journey through strength and perseverance. In The Odyssey, by Homer, Odysseus goes through a hero’s journey just like Hester.

The heroes’ quest is a common archetype that occurs in many forms of storytelling. This way of writing occurs used in movies, books, and art. A hero’s quest is a method of writing which consists of adventure, difficult decisions, victory, and then returning as a changed or transformed version of oneself. One of the important and most used hero quest aspects is enduring darkness. Usually, darkness is a journey, and not one that is a fun enjoyable ride.

Lastly, when Telemachus and Odysseus are fabricating their plan against the suitors Odysseus says, “Athena’s inspiration spurred me, now / so we could plan the slaughter of our foes” (16.263-64). Athena acts as an inspiration in the case of Telemachus approaching King Nestor and also when making the plan against the suitors. Athena proves herself as a heroine because she is the reason for Odysseus’ success. To conclude, female characters Penelope, Circe, and Athena prove their heroism in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey.

Cinderella’s Heroine Journey I chose the story of Cinderella to use when looking at the Hero’s/Heroine’s Journey that Campbell talked about. In the story, Cinderella is a perfect representation of anyone who feels alone, misunderstood, and unloved. She must figure a way to break free from her deprived position in life to become the mature lady she was meant to be and is capable of being. Separation