Lawrence of Arabia

Maybe my favorite film of all time, Lawrence of Arabia follows a soldier of the british army during the first world war. I guess the events were based on an actual person and story but im sure the version i've seen is a little grander. The film stars Peter o'toole and Alec Guiness (well before Star Wars) and won a number of awards in 1967, i think.

The protagonist is stationed in the middle east as a code cracker or some such when the story starts. He is terribly bored by all the paper pushing and office work and longs to get out into the desert to see some action. It is made clear from the start that Lawrence is an above average intelligence and ability. He finally wins a commission to go out and treat with the Bedouin nomads and garner support for the British cause. He is suppose to follow orders from his superior who leads him but it becomes apparent fairly quickly that he has more ability than his Commanding Officers. There is a clear threshold crossing when they move into the desert and encounter the Bedouin who are as alien to the British at that time as Martians would be today. He quickly garners the support of the Bedouin with his knowledge of their culture and the Koran which is their guiding light. They are also a warrior people and his bravery impresses them.

His first real trial is to lead the group of Bedouin through the worst part of the Sahara desert to a raid on the port city of Aqaba (spelling). They lose one man to the heat and Lawrence is forced to execute a man for theft. His actions harden him and increase the support of the Bedouin. They finally reach Aqaba and their raid is a success.

He reports back to the normal world of the British to great acclaim but finds he only feels at home in the desert. He spends the next year or so going back and forth as Master of the Two Worlds freely moving from the zone of adventure, back to safety. Unfortunately his successes lead to him mistaking his own identity. He forgets about being British and feels he actually IS a Bedouin. This error is made plain to him when he is captured and tortured because he stood out as a white man in an "Arab" city.

This is where he forsakes his adventures completely, and like Owain wandering in the wilderness, returns to the British encampment and tries to put everything behind him. The final part of his story in "Arabia" occurs when the British army enlists his aid for one final battle. They need Lawrence to go to the Bedouin and garner support for a fight. This he does with great success also, but his motives have changed ($$$) and he appears more as a Tyrant than a Hero. Ultimately he tries to force the British to recognise the Arabs as a nation and people but fails due to the inability of the Arabs to come together and set aside their differences.

He returns to Britain and dies in a motorcycle crash soon thereafter. It seems he never reintegrated into his home culture after his experiences in Arabia.

This story points out how the hero will often experience a change in consciousness which prevents him from ever returning fully to his place of origin. Much like the weary Hobbits at the end of Return of the King who must face a Shire which seems to be full of petty and selfish people, Lawrence identifies himself more with the Bedouin than the British. This leads to all sorts of problems as he cannot carry out his duties as a soldier and be faithful to the Bedouin also. The transitions between the zones of adventure are made very plain in the film as you can actually see the differences in landscape and culture. His meeting with the goddess might be represented by his temptation to take money, which at first he refuses. He eventually ascends to the fathers role as a leader of the Bedouin armies and respected member of their community. It is unfortunate however that whenever he returns to the British they mistake his motives for action as they cannot understand the Bedouin or the world into which Lawrence has been inittiated. Like the Christ in his own time his message is largely rejected and misunderstood and he suffers at the hands of his own people because of it. This is also a common theme of mythology. The hero will often return from his adventure with a message which his own people reject or cannot understand.

Thank you for the last few weeks.  I enjoyed reading your comments and getting to know a little bit about each of you through your journals and essays.  Please be sure to hand in you final projects before Monday so i can get your grades done on time.

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.

Broken Link

I am sorry that the link didn't work from yesterday.  Here it is: Owain and the Lady of the Fountain  
We probably won't have time to look at Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  So please disregard any reference to it in the schedule and instead focus on the above reading which is probably the best so far on this subject.  Please be aware that your final projects are due this weekend.  I will have your grades finished by Monday and posted for you to see.  Tomorrow we will discuss Owain and then on Friday we'll discuss your movie picks.


I'm really glad to see that things are coming together and making sense for people.  The comments posted from yesterday were really good and show that you are grasping the importance of this to myth.

In order to be able to bring a change in consciousness and return to the masses with it, it is often necessary to overcome your desire. Desire usually takes the shape of worldy things such as money, sex, power, food, whatever. When is the last time you saw a fat Buddhist monk? The hero can enjoy worldy things but not to the exclusion of his main purpose.  Bilbo Baggins (before his adventure) was a great example of a selfish fool. He would rather indulge his desires, food, smoking, sleep, than anything else. It was not until he was forced out of Hobbiton, and faced some trials that he became someone who really understood, charity, compassion, courage, etc. By the end of the novel he turned a 180 into a self actualized human being, from the infantile figure he was.

So yes, Adam taking the apple from Eve and eating amounted to Adam's choice to live with woman and all she stands for.  Earthly temptation was to great for Adam and so mankind was consigned to the earth and be a part of it forever.  This explains why we must submit ourselves to the indignity of death while still enjoying the pleasures of sex and love.  So the real choice made was Adam's; Eve was and is a representative of life.  Adam chose knowledge of the world over spiritual bliss and ignorance.


Sorry again about the broken link. 

Meeting with Goddess

Please forgive me if there are any errors. MY daughter is up early because she is teething and having a rough time. As the title of this section implies, the hero at some point must reconcile himself with his opposite. IF you are having trouble following the reading be sure to return to the Monomyth website to brush up on each stage. In meeting with the goddess the hero encounters the feminine aspect of himself. The nature of her appearance and her stature are scaled to the difficulty of the hero deed. In folk tales the goddess is represented by the sleeping princess who must be awakened to love. Usually such a tale ends in marriage showing us that the meeting with the goddess can be an awakening to love. She can also take a terrifying and powerful form such as Kali who represents the totality of life in time. Such a meeting would likely be the end for any hero who was not prepared to face such a power. While all heroes return from their journeys with some gift, the highest kind of heroes will return with a spiritual message. If a hero is not prepared for such a meeting with the goddess it is likely he will misinterpret his encounter. Such errors occur and, in my opinion, exist in Christianity with Mary Magdalene’s classification as a whore. In such traditions all the things which are associated with the feminine also become profane. As you may remember, the goddess has a great many associations including: the physical world, fertility, sex, birth, death. As you may know all these things were or are considered profane in Christianity. This is from an excessive patriarchy and too much obedience to the masculine principle of divinity.

We find very few traditions along the line of Christianity which emphasize the corruptness of the physical world and denial of its joys and divinity. Sex is dirty, birth is dirty, and death also must be scrubbed clean by prayer.

From the weekends reading we see that a new world opens for the hero when he discovers the divinity in the feminine principle which is in reality the other half of his divided self. Love is perhaps the greatest joy one can find in this world and its ability to overwhelm all other worldly obligations proves its status as sacred. Suddenly people don't care what their parents (society) think and dismiss social obligation. This is one of the barriers that faced the Buddha who also had to face lust and greed which are perversions of love. This is a huge problem today.

Ultimately the woman can represent a temptation to the hero, in the form of worldly pleasures, which may cause him to forsake his spiritual adventure for physical comfort.

To spend a minute with the slaying of Fafnir I'd like to point out two important things about that story: 1. the dragon is a symbol of avarice in the west. He accumulates great wealth and spends none of it. This is why it is a typical trial for a hero to face. Do you take the money to give up your quest? 2. Sigurd performs excellently well in this story as he gives the treasure away. Had he stayed and kept the wealth he would have supplanted the dragon and ceased to be a heroic figure.

For tomorrow please look at the following reading: Owain and the Lady of the Fountain
This reading very clearly identifies the different parts of the hero cycle and is a great example of the monomyth. Finish for Wed. if you need to.


For Friday please read: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we will discuss a bit every day until Friday. You should be able to get through about 10 pages a night.