Return of the Hero

I'd like to discuss Owain and the Fountain a bit for today. Tommorrow we will post our hero movie review and write a brief course review for our journal entry.

Owain is an interesting story because Owain is kind of a rookie knight and hasn't really earned his stripes yet. When he hears of Kais adventure he feels he has found a task which will earn him renown. What he ends up with however is much more. Some of the obvious symbols include the huge knight they first must encounter. This seems to be the challenge of fear. Sometimes the thing you fear is not all that bad and when you confront it, like the knight it becomes a friend or ally in your struggle.

This is where Owain passes through to the very center of the zone of power. Once he reaches the fountain and summons the mounted knight, who is clearly a guardian of the threshold, he easily gives him a mortal wound and chases him right into the castle. It is very clear to the reader when he passes the threshold and his horse is cut in half. This seems to be a sign that he is entering the realm of adventure.

When he meets his supernatural aid in the form of Luned she helps him escape his capitivity but he still faces the danger of being caught in the castle. His danger is even more since he has slain the lord of the castle and will shortly come to replace him. This is clearly atonement with the father and meeting with the goddess. He eventually becomes the guardian of the castle itself and remains in the other realm, forgeting that he ever was a knight in Arthur's court.

 The hero's return to the land he came from can be easy or difficult. For a time Owain refuses to return to Arthur's court and instead becomes a resident of the Countess's realm. It only when The whole of Arthurs' court come after him that he agrees to return to the land he came from, for a short time. Owain has become a great hero at this point but his return to Arthur's realm still consists of a "Flight" or "Escape" as he is bound to return in three months and cannot freely leave that land of his own accord.

Owain breaks his promise to the Countess however and suffers something of psychological crack up because of it. This is where he goes into voluntary exile, most likely to die. He has no land now and has no place to be. When the new countess finds him and places a balm on his heart, he is forgiven and reborn. This is where he takes on a new personality and shortly becomes more than a man. He must reattain his status as a knight and it is when he defends the lion from the serpent that his fate is sealed. The Lion as a symbol of the power and majesty of Christ clearly contrasts with that of the serpent.  This is also clearly used by CS Lewis in his Narnia series. Owain has aligned his soul with Christ and becomes invincible with the lion on his side. It is at this opint that he is reunited with Luned and the countess as a new and better man and is able to move back and forth between the two worlds as he chooses. Owain becomes the ultimate hero in a sense because wherever he goes, fear, tyranny, and greed are abolished and the powers which are locked up by the "dragons" are released back into the world. Owain becomes a symbol for positive change and lives out the rest of his life in peace. I think this is a great story because it follows all the changes of the hero and his missteps as well.