The Assignment

While you finish up watching the video and reading the outline of the Hero Cycle on the linked web page, I thought we could spend today discussing your final project. This is an open ended project without a lot of constraints for you. My goal is to hopefully spark your creativity and allow you to pursue an idea in any way you see fit. I've had students write poetry, create music,and even fashion My Space pages for deities such as Zeus. There is always the option of writing a longer research paper but I'd prefer you settled on something a bit more interesting. You may want to ask yourself how your interests intersect with the Hero Journey. What am I good at and how can I express this? I don't expect perfection today, but I would like you to share some ideas you might have in your blog posting today. Please try and have a final idea to me this weekend. We only have one more week before the course is over and that doesn't give you a ton of time to complete your project. I look forward to reading your ideas. Stay cool.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Ignore the link in the title.  It does nothing and I cant fix it.   This link however, will take you to a page on the stages of the Hero Cycle as described by Campbell.  As you watch the video its relevance to all mythology should become plain.   This is a way to interpret some of the great hero stories as well the great myths that we have already read.  In addition Campbell's Hero Journey has a direct connection to the lives of "ordinary" folks like us and gives us a way to translate the important experiences in our lives to a spiritual plane the way myth does.

During the course of the video he mentions George Lucas and the Star Wars series of films. Campbell was actually an advisor to George Lucas on those films and that is probably the reason why they came out so good. The focus on the hero myth also brings the cosmological scale of mythology down to the personal scale. I believe it was Campbell who said that "myths allow us to live a good life in any time". This is shown to be true in Star Wars as well as Arthurian Legend and even farther back into what we have already read. Tommorrow i will discuss the Stages of the Hero Journey (from website) in more detail.

Finally, I would like you all to begin sending me ideas you have for the final project.  Please send me at least one idea in the next few days.  Also remember that the second part of your American Gods essay is due this weekend.   Enjoy the film.

Transition

The Bacchae highlights the mutability of Dionysian power and the aspect of godhood that we spoke of before. Namely that "God" encompasses all opposites and makes them one. This is demonstrated in Pentheus' acting out of an effeminate role. Dionysus wakes whatever is suppressed or hidden and brings it to the fore of your consciousness. Pentheus' death represents his own inability to come to terms with his "anima" or opposite in God and he suffered a crack-up because of it.

What most people find interesting about this story is it's parallel with the story of Christ. It seems pretty intriguing that the story of Dionysus written by Euripides, about the time of the Buddha, possesses many common elements of the story of Christ.
Both of them are regenerative gods who die and are reborn. Both gods are the son of an ultimate male power, both are also represent a gospel of sorts and have very dedicated followers. Both of them also follow the typical hero cycle in their rise to power. They are "virgin births" who later were called to adventure, wen tout into the wilderness and returned to share life renewing message.

This is a good transition into the last two weeks of the class where we will examine the hero deed in detail; using Campbell's monomyth as the model. Campbell s basic premise was based on a departure, an initiation and a return. This model is used often to describe the hero journey and crosses cultural barriers. It describes all kinds of hero acts, from the personal to the cosmological and everything in between. This is where mythology gets really personal. Take a look at the video i posted as well as the webpage link i posted. We will cover these in more detail later.

This link will take you to a page that describes each stage of the hero's journey briefly. This will be important for the next two weeks.  The author of that page also decided to outline the Harry Potter story according to Campbell's Hero Cycle.  Its Quite interesting.

Bacchae

The Bacchae is a great example of how much the Greeks loved Dionysus and how they recognized that there is a time for everything. Even though they worshiped Apollo and Athena for their reason, wisdom and ability to structure society, they also recognized the opposite in Dionysus and how important it is. Just as it is important to inflate the ego of your society to be proud of its achievements; it is just as important that you not take your self too seriously. This was highlighted in Medieval Christendom through the use of the "Fool" or court jester. A parody of the king himself; the court jester was a constant reminder to those in power what their eventual fate might be or could have been. The jester might deliver a parody of the kings decrees or mimic his actions and we see that in Shakespeare mighty kings such as Lear could have done well to listen to the advice of their fools.

Because Dionysus represents the hidden aspects of our unconscious mind and the taboo aspects of society he has the power to do much harm to law and order and our ego. But this only holds true if we refuse to acknowledge him. Our American society is such a one as this. We turn a blind eye to the poor, the sick, and less fortunate. We marginalize gays and lesbians much as we used to black and Asian people. We ignore genocide in Rwanda and the Congo because it "does not affect us". We turned a blind eye to the injustice occurring in Afghanistan until it we were forced to recognize it in the heart of our American ego; New York.

There is an old saying that "your enemy hides in the shadow you cast". This is certainly very true for us as our society, a great one, casts a very large shadow. In that shadow our enemies take shape, but Dionysus would have us know that they are products of our own greatness. Dionysus prompts us to recognize and come to terms with our shadow, our opposite, before it consumes us quietly from within.