The Hero's Journey In Literature

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Oral traditions are amazingly the only reason these Russian fairy tales remain today. In the 13th century the Pagan Church would persecute fairy tales along with several other types of folklore for its use of magic and witchcraft. The only way these stories passed down to the next generation was through the word of mouth, and the imaginary creatures and magic not only lived on, but spread throughout Russian culture.
An archetype is a character, action, or situation that represents typical patterns of human nature and is often known as a universal symbol, or the hero, of the story. The hero’s journey in literature describes the common adventure of the archetype, who goes to achieve great things or save the day for their group or civilization. …show more content…

The journey of the hero is significant because it helps to show common challenges and how the hero learns lessons by overcoming them. Its purpose is to help the reader to bond with the archetype and feel as though they are with them throughout the journey, so they may learn what the hero learns along the way. In folklore, the hero’s journey is significant because not only is the main goal of folklore to teach a lesson, but a hero commonly faces magical creatures and supernatural beings along their journey, which are main parts in myths, legends, and fairy tales. In “Anastasia” the protagonist, Anastasia, lives in the ordinary world with her family in the Russian royal palace. However, the story changes, and she takes the call to adventure when her family is cursed by Rasputin and killed. When she tries to escape, she becomes separated from her grandmother. Over the next ten years, she forgets who she is, and lives in an orphanage, where she faces the refusal of the call to find her family. She decides to look for her remaining grandmother, and meets the mentors, which are really the two con men that help her on her journey to her grandmother. She crosses the threshold and begins her journey to Paris. She faces many tests and …show more content…

In the approach, they arrive in Paris at her grandmother’s, to which she initially refuses to see, believing it is not actually her. In the ordeal, the two men kidnap the grandmother and take her to Anastasia, and she realizes that it is in fact her and they are reunited. In the process, Dmitri realizes it is truly her too. Afterwards, Dmitri refuses the reward money and takes the road back to Russia, leaving them all. However, in the resurrection, Anastasia faces Rasputin one more time, and he tries to kill her. Through the fight, she destroys the reliquary that keeps him alive, and he disappears. She finally returns with the elixir as Dmitri returns, and they run off together to live happily ever after. The whole purpose of the journey in “Anastasia” is to send a message or a moral to the viewer about what she learned, and show what type of character Anastasia is. It

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