Harry Potter Influenced By Classical Hero Adventures English Literature Essay

Harry Potter Influenced By Classical Hero Adventures English Literature Essay Classical mythology stories together with the hero adventures are very subtle. Greek mythology culture and religion identifies the origin of the world, gods, and humans and how that society has influence the present society today. They also happen to reveal many relevant motifs that are being used in this contemporary culture. The Joseph Campbell theory portrays a depiction of the differences and similarities in a modern twenty-first century film like, Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban. Some of the recurrent motifs that are conveyed in both the great classical myth of hero adventures and in the Joseph Campbell theory are implicated into Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban film, these motifs are transformation of appearances, call to adventures and Threshold of Adventures, helpers, death, resurrection and award. Joseph Campbell theory suggests that the same heroic ideas that have been used in the Greek mythology stories it is also being used in the modern fictional hero story today. For example, The Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie has conformed the same ideas and motifs by the main character, Harry Potter, first starting off to the struggle and unwanted refrain of living in his uncles house. As he rebels against his intolerable aunt who says horrible things to him of his parents and mistreat him, he uses forbidden magic against her which causes her to blow up. Luckily for him he does not get into trouble. After this whole misfortunate visit, Harry is disappointed and decides to pick up and leave, out of sight a bus appears and picks him up. Harry then sees the front of a newspaper with the breaking news that Sirius Black has escaped the Azkaban Prison. After Harry returns to Hogwarts School, everyone is afraid of Sirius Black. Meanwhile, Harry has bad encounters with Dementors who are dark shadows that kill you by feeding off your happy memories. In addition, Harry thinks that Sirius Black is interested in killing him. This is when Harry goes into an adventure and finds out that Sirius Black is his godfather and was an ally with the evil Voldemort who was also responsible to his parents death. During this mission, Harry fight against a werewolf, which is his Professor Lubin and against the Dementors. During this whole dilemma, Harry discovers how his godfather escaped and all the revelations of truth come out. However, at the end of the story Harry finds out that his godfather was always innocent and that his parents traitor turned out to be Peter Pettigrew who was transformed all the time as , Harry best friend; Ron pet rat. With great success Harry saves his godfathers life and an innocent animal; half eagle and half horse name Buckbeak who if it wasnt for Harry and Hermione; Harry other, best friend Buckbeak would have died. Harry and Hermione are adv ised by their superior Dumbledore to change the past. Due to this they both go on another adventure by going back into time to see how they can prevent Harrys and Buckbeak death from occurring and prevent any further catastrophe (like Harrys godfathers death). One impressive characteristic that the Harry Potter movie along with the classical myths hero adventures share is the transformations of their appearance. For example, in the classical myth the gods and goddess transform themselves into different figures all the time. In the legend of Perseus, for instance, after an oracle told his grandfather Acrisius that a son of his daughter Danae was going to kill him, Acrisius immediately afraid of this locked his daughter under the castles chamber. Nevertheless, Zeus, the god of all the gods lay with Danae by transforming himself into the shower of gold and gets Danae pregnant with Perseus. There are more situations in the classical mythology where these transformations reoccurred various times, for example, Zeus once transformed himself as his daughter Artemis to have sex with Callisto; a female huntress who is Artemis follower, and the goddess Hera; Zeus wife, also transforms herself as an old lady in the myth of Jason, where Jason himself h elps her by carrying her across a river. These stories have had a great influence in the modern fictional stories today like Harry Potters. In Harry Potters, the prisoner (Sirius Black)that escaped the prison of Azkaban, accomplished this by disguising himself into a dog. In addition to this, some of Harrys professors transform themselves into animals and other people too. The Threshold of Adventures is another motif that have influenced in both society (of ancient and modern stories). In the beginning of Harry Potters movie Harry is on vacation at his uncles house, the only family he has. In this world no one is allow to practice magic and their life is more ordinary than when Harry goes back to school. When Harry goes back to school this is where the The Threshold of Adventures is divided between his two worlds. The wizardry world and the normal life back home. This is similar to Heracles and many other heros when they are at their city and home is different from when they go on their adventures, for instances, like the Argonauts or Heracles twelve labors. Moving on, Harry starts the call to adventure when he is first told by Mr. Weasley, Rons father that Sirius Black is after him, Harry from here on knows that he has an enemy to be attentive of. Like in many other ancient heroes stories Harry faces obstacles that try to stop him from continuing to finish his conquest. For example, when Harry is on the train on his way to the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a Dementor figure, appears on the train to kill harry, lucky for him that he was accompanied by one of the new professors that was going to be teaching in the school of magic. This call to adventure reflects to the hero Heracles, When Heracles is on his twelve labor adventures and even before then, Heracles faces many obstacles that are mostly caused by the goddess Hera. For instance, one of these obstacles is the madness of Heracles, Hera had caused Heracles to go into a fit of insanity causing a lapse of judgment on his part that made him kill his wife and three kids. Although , this tragedy causes Heracles pain, he is still able to overcome this and to continue to keep going forward. On the eleventh labor Heracles is sent to get the apples of the Hesperides during this labor Heracles comes across two impediments, one the sea-god Nereus and the other the serpent Ladon. Fortunately Heracles gets rid of these two barriers. Furthermore, like Harry, Heracles, with the help of supernatural figures and friends is able to rely on someone to help him complete his task, like in Heracles, the goddess Athena and Atlas, Heracles conquest this labor with victory. Harry most dangerous quest is when he has to fight against the Dementors and the werewolf. This is when the helper motif takes place. When Harrys intentions are to fight the werewolf, the dog which is his (godfather) fights for him. Severus Snape one of Harrys Professor is also in the fight and because of the enragement back and forth its that the truth reveals about Sirius Black innocence. Hermione and Ron help Harry runaway first from the Werewolf and then Hermione uses her voice to make a sound to distract the werewolf from hurting Harry. After the werewolf leaves Harry, he is then tormented by the Dementors and a figure that appears in the light rescues him. Due to all this Harry then realizes that he wakes up in a hospital, this is when Dumbledore indirectly advices them to go back into time. Hermione uses her tool, a Time-Turner which is a time travel device that helps them go back in time and prevent Macnair, an executor from killing Buckbeak, and the Dementors from Killing Ha rry and Sirius Black. With the time travelling help Harry goes back and defeats the Dementors by casting a spell from the other side to stop them from killing himself and his godfather. In this movie Harry is being helped by a ghost like entity that enters a female professors body. Which assist him with a message for the upcoming future. Harry also receives the help from professors by being trained to become strong enough to get rid of the Dementors. In the classical myths hero adventures of Heracles and Perseus they receive the help from both supernatural figures and mortals. For example, the goddess Athena and the god Hermes helped these heros with their tasks. These gods also provided them with the tools to facilitate them in conquering their missions. In the myth of the hero Perseus, Athena and Hermes advised Perseus to go to the three Graeae and to force them into telling him the way to the unnamed nymphs Perseus there obtains the cap of invisibility, a pair of winged sandals, and a bag to safely carry Medusas head. Hermes also gave him a scimitar. In Heracles adventures he himself is helped by Athena as previously mentioned. Nonetheless, he is also helped by his human nephew Iolaos in the second labor that he has to perform, The Lernaean Hydra where his nephew helps kill the nine headed serpent. As a result, a new correlation can be made from the ancient times myths and from Harry Potters movie. For instance, in the Perseus legend, Perseus is told that in order for him to get the truth he needs to force the Graeaes by removing their one tooth and eye; this forces them to tell him how to locate the nymphs. Similar to this, in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the professor Lupin forcefully transformed Pettigrew from a rat to a human, to prove to Harry that it was Pettigrew after all disguised as a rat, that was responsible for betraying Harry parents and turning them over to the evil Voldermort. These two correlations depict how the same idea of forcing someone out of their will can help the hero achieve what they want. In both these cases Harrys was seeking the truth and in Perseus was to defeat the Gordon. Next the motif of death is used in many ancient hero stories, for example, in Heracles, Deianeira, Heracles wife, had sent him a robe thinking it was going to make him fall love only with her. Unknowingly she didnt know the robe was going to cause him to burn, since the arrow that Heracles had killed the centaur with was poisoned with the hydra he had killed in earlier labors. He was in such agonizing pain that he wanted to die and so he killed himself by mounting his own funeral pyre and had it lit. This is the death of one of the heros. Furthermore, in Harry Potters movie death among the hero is also installed. For instance, when all the Dementors attack Harry and his godfather, his godfather dies and Harry dimly dies too. If it wasnt for the Harry from the future, Harry together with Sirius Black would have both deceased. The theme of death is commonly use in the modern stories today just as it was represented back in antiquity times. The motif of resurrection it is cleverly used in this recent movie just as it was used in many other classical myths. When the Dementors attacked both Harry and the Sirius Black, Sirius died, and since time is stopped there and Hermione and Harry use the time travel device, its the reason that Harry was able to go back and save his godfather and himself. In the legend of Heracles, after Heracles perished, since he had completed all twelve of his labor he received the price of immortality, Heracles father Zeus converted him into an immortal god, where he reconciled with Hera and married her daughter Hebe. Lastly, one of the most frequent motifs is price at the end of each story. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry has the price of knowing the truth of his godfather and saving three lives, Sirius Black, Buckbeak and including the evil Pettigrew, which he didnt allow the werewolf to kill. Harrys life goes back to normal with no fear of having the thought of having someone after him to kill him. Pettigrew now owes his life to Harry. In most of the classical hero adventures, the heros have a happy ending. One illustration is when, Perseus becomes king of Tiryns and lives with his beautiful wife Andromeda. Like mention before, Heracles become an immortal god and marries the goddess of youth, Hebe. In summary, most of the modern stories today are based on the Joseph Campbell theory and the ancient classical mythologies. It gives a great depiction of how the myths of this ancient society have influence and is very relevant to the stories of this current society. The five recurrent motifs give a great exemplification of how contemporary authors and directors rely on these types of foundation to create a successful prolonged novel or movie.

Subjects to Citizens: Locke, the Enlightenment

The idea of people as citizens rather than as subjects originates in 16th century Europe, during the Early Modern Period. During this period, European social order was in a state of flux as the rule of kings was confronted with a persistent and determined challenges defined by social forces that were pushing for more secular and democratic governments. There were both individuals and events that today may be seen as powerful drivers of those forces, and among them are John Locke, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution.As such a force, the Enlightenment, which began during the mid-17th century and remained a major political and philosophical phenomenon until approximately 1800, had tremendous impact in the rise and triumph of democracy over monarchy. The Enlightenment was catalyzed by the persistent discourse of a number of philosophers and historians, one of the foremost of which was John Locke.The magnitude of change introduced by the Enlightenment is rendered more clearly whe n viewing that period in context of the preceding era—the Medieval Period, during which the rule of kings prevailed, sustained by an embedded religious institutions that qualified the lineages of kings for ruler ship through divine ordainment. The Church enjoyed considerable reciprocity from the crowns by doing so, because rulers recognized the equity that religion held in the minds of their â€Å"subjects†, and found value in making mutually beneficial agreements with the church to preserve this closed loop cycle of maintaining and preserving a rigid social order.The losers of course were the â€Å"subjects† of those kingdoms, who ultimately had little say in who ruled them, and who were indoctrinated into a life of mute slavery and poverty, deprived of both education as well as the right to imagine upward social mobility, much less the access to opportunities to actually pursue such improved quality of life.It was the endpoint of these social dynamics, and the progressive deterioration of social responsibility throughout the dual leadership trees of church and crown, that catalyzed the French Revolution during the last decade of the 18th century. The French Revolution, in a nutshell, was the revolt of the long repressed peasantry against what they rightfully recognized as a corrupt governmental power cartel defined by the closed loop relationships between the crown and the Church.The French Revolution really punctuates the spirit of the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenment was all about waking people up to the notion that they had a right to select their leaders and that anybody was capable of exercising reason and logic in doing so, and most importantly that exercising those capacities was a much better answer to society’s problems than continuing to rely on superstitious belief in the right of a lineage of kings to continue ruling despite worsening social conditions.It was not until the French Revolution however that the Enl ightenment really manifested full force. John Locke died nearly a century before the French Revolution, but he played a key role in developing the philosophies that activated and drove the Enlightenment, particularly through his composition of the Two Treatises. In these documents, he makes an effort to refute the notion that people do not have the capacity or knowledge or political understanding to select their own rulers.Locke’s philosophical arguments here really took those of opposing contemporaries like Sir Robert Filmer, whose viewpoints closely reflect the social order maintained by pre-Enlightenment establishment. Filmer’s Patriarcha: The Natural Power of Kings Defended Against the Unnatural Liberty of the People, a composition that presented arguments supporting the pre-existing social order of monarchic rule. The prevailing establishment justified monarchic rule through a number of arguments, both sociological and religious.Among these, they did so by arguing that a nation is like a family, with the population as the children as the king as the parent. Another argument was that to share the power of leadership in a democratic manner would be to invite and embrace the breakdown of social ethics, presumably because the natural disposition of a populace is to chafe under rules and laws and to desire more freedom, and that the endpoint of this would be excessive liberties, the deterioration of morality and ultimately the rise of an era where selfish and unjust rulers would take power.Rulers believed that the population simply could not, nor would they ever in a sustainable manner be capable of, responsibly selecting its own leaders. Locke challenged these ideas by introducing the concept of the Commonwealth, which would be defined by a social contract whereby the members of the Commonwealth participate in surrendering a certain level of liberty in order to ensure the stability of society and the preservation of the community.This surrender would only be the minimum required to preserve the peace, safety and security of the commonwealth, and part of this would involve the implementation of a democratic or republican system by which citizens would have at least a representative body in the government to ensure their needs were addressed. Notably, this was a key factor that activated in the French peasantry a desire to overthrow the First and Second estates, which they felt were taxing them without caring for their needs or interests.

The Top 5 Worst Roman Emperors

The Battle Of The American Civil War - 2043 Words

Perhaps during no period in the American Civil War was Union victory more in doubt than the in the winter of 1862. Patriotic fervor had dissipated, volunteers were scarce, and Union statesman were slowly succumbing to notions of a compromise that could end the war, but at the expense of Lincoln’s political objectives. Standing opposite of Grand Gulf on the western bank of the Mississippi River, General Ulysses S. Grant faced a critical decision; withdraw his army to strengthen supply lines to Memphis, or continue to Vicksburg. Grant’s decision to proceed brought with it significant risk, but the alternative would almost certainly have exacerbated the already tenuous political conditions. Grant later defended his decision in saying a â€Å"defeat or backward movement† would cede the initiative to the Pemberton’s Army of Mississippi, thus â€Å"a forward movement to a decisive victory was necessary† to both operational success and the continuation of Lincoln’s policy. Grant’s combination of political acumen and prudent tactical decision making in Vicksburg was a fine example of operational art by a man who many consider its greatest practitioner. Grant expertly balanced risk and opportunity by conducting a series of operations in time, space, and purpose using ground and naval forces in pursuit of strategic objectives. The intent of this paper is not to narrate the campaign in its entirety, but rather to examine key points in the campaign where Grant best applied operational art. ThisShow MoreRelatedThe Battle Of The American Civil War Essay1488 Words   |  6 Pages How could a traumatic war possibly be a great cause to our country? The battles of the American Civil War for example, has dramatically affected this country in a plethora of ways; from abolishing slavery in the South, uniting the United States, and changing the political and social ways of how we are today. However, these are not the only changes to occur. Military and medicine started to advance, and even different cultures and languages began to develop across the land. As of today, it has beenRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War905 Words   |  4 PagesThe American Civil war occurred about seventy-eight years after the American Revolution, and has many of the same characteristics of a revolution. In both wars, the American people fought for what they believed in and the way of life that they wished to live. However, the two wars differ from each other, as the soldiers that fought in the Civil War fought a new American Revolution that could have split the new world. The Confederate soldiers in the Civil War fought to keep their way of life withoutRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War1140 Words   |  5 PagesOn April 12th 1861 the famous American Civil War began, citizens from all over the United states fought against one another. The war pitted brother against brother in a fight primarily over the freedom of slaves. The majority of soldiers in the Civil War were white especially those serving the southern regiments, however African Americans served as well. The black regiments of the military during the civil were successful and essential. These African Americans were referred to as Buffalo SoldiersRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War869 Words   |  4 PagesA Confederate Divided The American Civil War has become a point of controversy and argument when discussing key events in shaping America. The arguments that arise when discussing the war tend to focus on whether the Confederate was constitutionally justified in seceding, or whether the North had the right to prevent the secession. However, when discussing the America Civil War and the idea of separation, it is important to be mindful that separation did not simply end at the state level.Read MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War1335 Words   |  6 Pagesback with hindsight and the knowledge of warfare of the 21st century it is easy to say that the American Civil War was simply put, a very traditional war. Thinking of modern tactics and a course of numbers and deployment one might come to the conclusion that the Civil War was fought centuries ago; nevertheless, it only occurred 152 years ago. This hard fought national struggle was in fact a very modern war for many simple reasons, including the e mergence of a new form of large national government withRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War1425 Words   |  6 PagesThree years after the attack on Fort Sumter, one of the most controversial battles of the American Civil War was fought in West Tennessee. The battle at Fort Pillow, located near the Mississippi River about 50 miles north of Memphis, was a bloody slaughter of a mixed Union garrison. The garrison was comprised of 557 men total, about half of those men were African American s in the 6th U.S. Regiment Colored Heavy Artillery, and the 2nd Colored Light Artillery, commanded by Major Lionel F. Booth.Read MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War998 Words   |  4 PagesThe American Civil War was fought from April 12th 1861 to May 9th 1865 to mark the bloodiest clash in American history. The civil war started as a result of differences between the free and slave states over the authority of the national government to outlaw slavery in the Southern states. The eco nomy of the northern states had modernized and industrialization had taken root. They had invested heavily in their transport system, financial industries and communications network. The Southern economyRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War1018 Words   |  5 Pages On September 17, 1862, the Union and Confederate armies met near the Maryland village of Sharpsburg in a battle that still remains the single bloodiest day in American history. The battle consisted of many attacks and counterattacks between Union General George B. McClellan and The Army of the Potomac against Confederate Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Confederates managed to fight relentlessly over the course of the struggle. However, afterRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War2055 Words   |  9 PagesThe American Civil War was an infamous struggle fought, primarily, on the issue of slavery. This war shook the nation to its very core, and its legacy has lived on in the hearts and minds of American citizens. Few words have a stronger impact, or strike as familiar of a note, as the words â€Å"Four score and seven years ago.† Americans recognize this statement on a subconscious level, even if they do not know whe re they are from. These words were spoken in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, at a pivotalRead MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War1463 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"Stonewall† Jackson was alive in a very tense time for American History. The Southern States were in a full scale rebellion from the Union now calling themselves The Confederate States of America. The previously unified nation was split into two opposing sides going head to head in a battle to the death, with no end in sight. Starting his career in the US military, Jackson continued on to become one of the most famous generals in the American Civil War. Many historians consider him not only a strong leader