The Value Of Character Development In Jason And The Argonauts

The archetypes that are prevalent in many different stories all have have common origin in Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces. More specifically, in the medieval story, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, there are distinct archetypes that are especially necessary to the theme of the story.An understanding of three key archetypes—the temptress the magic weapon, and the task—reveal the essence of Gawain’s role within the archetypal quest motif.

these stories the Olympian gods in the stories play important roles that affect the lives of both Jason and Medea. The behaviors of these two character also have a great contrast between them. In the story of “Jason and the Golden Fleece”, Jason is the son of Aeson who is the legitimate king of Iolcus, in Thessaly. Aeson’s half brother Pelias steals the throne away from Aeson making himself the new king of Iolcus. Jason is the rightful heir to the thrown but his father feared for his life and sent him to live with the centaur Cheiron. In time Jason wanted to know of his parents and wanted to reclaim the royal

Within literature, there are many figures that readers can choose to remember. These figures can possess many attributes that give reasons for them to be remembered by. For literature based upon the Arthurian time written in the 14th century, there are many examples of people that should be remembered. In particular, a figure that is important to remember is Sir Gawain, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This paper will be arguing that Gawain is remembered as the best knight in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight because while he is not a perfect knight he still shows many aspects of what it is like to be courtly and heroic therefore a great example to look up to.

In order to gain a proper perspective on the concept of what a tragic hero is, we must synthesize information from the following play’s, “The Death Of A Salesman”, and “Oedipus The King”. Both plays takes the stance on the idea that validates the ultimate notion,  “tragic hero. From Willy’s hubris personality to his questionable and mysterious death, to Oedipus dynamic and complex choices and kingly personality that determines his fate. A tragic hero is a literary character who makes a judgement that leads to his/her downfall. In other words, even though both characters made incredible contributions and left a very noble legacy, their choices and decisions determined their ultimate fate. In today’s world tragic heroes are commonly present,

In addition to providing for his children, Jason also does complete the role of the protector. When Medea goes on her serial killing spree, Jason only knows that she has killed his new wife. Thus, Jason immediately thinks of his children and arrive as the palace “so [that he may] save the lives / Of [his] boys, in case the royal house should harm them / While taking vengeance for their mother’s wicked deed” (Euripides 391). He knows that the royal family of Corinth might see his sons and want to kill them because they are related to Medea; therefore, Jason wishes to whisk them away to safety before he loses them as well. However, he soon discovers Medea has also killed their sons, and he is absolutely stricken with grief. He mourns for “the boys whom [he] begot and brought up” and questions Medea on how she could have stomached such an unforgivable and sordid deed (Euripides 391). After many accusations from Medea, Jason then begs to see the sons’ dead bodies so that he may burry and mourn them, but Medea “prevents [him] from / Touching their bodies or giving them burial” (Euripides 393). Jason, left without a chance to mourn for the loss of his children, leaves Medea as she blames him for the deaths of their children.

The outstanding play “Antigone” written by Sophocles introduces how Antigone can reveal the honor within a family. “Antigone” produces a tragic hero, which is Antigone because of her pride and imitation of action.

In many works of literature, many archetypes (or symbols) are used to help the reader understand the story of a hero’s quest. In the Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the hero has to go on a fatal journey to uphold the reputation of Camelot. While enduring that journey, Gawain has to conquer many trails. Gawain’s succession of trials leaves the hero, like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, a “sadder but wiser man.” With all the trials that Gawins intakes, many archetypal characters contribute to the theme of the story.

There are a number of many different archetypes found in works of fiction and nonfiction that bestow upon the hero his true role in a work of literature. In the Middle English, chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain’s role as the hero emboldens as the story describes more and more archetypes of the quest. The monomyth can be described as the three step process that the hero takes in completing the quest motif. The basic template is supported by “separation, initiation, and return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth” (Campbell 28). Each of these three categories contain other subcategories, which help understand the different archetypical situation within the work itself. An understanding of three key archetypes -the magic weapon, the boon, and the unhealable wound- reveal the essence of Gawain’s role within the archetypal quest motif.

As is archetypal to all Greek tragedies, ‘Medea’ by Euripides chronicles the downfall of a noble hero, Jason, as a result of a combination of factors like fate, hubris and the will of the gods. In ‘Medea’, the hubris of the main character, Jason, was his pride. This drove him to betray his wife Medea’s trust and defy moral parameters set by the gods. Euripides employed the hubris of Jason and his act of disobedience towards the gods as a reflection of Athenian society of the time and used this as an attempt to correct the progressively immoral ways of society. This piece focuses on pride as Jason’s hubris and its contribution to his imminent downfall.

An archetypal analysis of Gawain’s quest reveals some significant changes that occur in the hero’s character. We will analyze the progress of the hero, Gawain, as he ventures out to complete his quest. By analyzing the works of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight along with The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and how it completes the Hero’s Journey.

Even in the middle ages of literature, a story such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight had many aspects of Joseph Campbell’s view of the hero’s journey. In the story of our character Sir Gawain accepts a “Call to adventure” (Campbell 45) and goes on a quest that will go through many of the archetypes. Likewise, there lies one character, The Green Knight, that can be many of the archetypal characters in the cycle of the hero’s journey. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dramatically demonstrates how a single character can play many archetypal roles.

Aeetes was used to getting visitors who had come for the fleece, and had devised a test for quickly getting rid of them. He had a standing challenge to give up the fleece to anyone who could tame two fire-breathing bulls and then use them to plow a field with dragon's teeth. Jason was stumped by how to pass this quest and was saved at the last moment by Aeetes own daughter Medea, who gave him a potion of wild herbs that would protect him from the fiery breath of the bulls. With the help, Jason easily tamed the bulls, and began to sow the field, but noticed that where he had put the teeth, soldiers were springing up from the ground. Jason hid from them, most cowardly, but then came up with a plan for getting rid of them. He picked up a huge stone and threw it into the middle of the mass of soldiers, killing one. A quarrel immediately started amongst the soldiers over who had thrown the rock, and a fight broke out, killing all but a few, whom Jason was able to easily overcome. With the help of Medea, Jason was able to steal the fleece from its guardian, a dragon, by putting it to sleep, and escape from Colchis.

            To identify the tragic hero in Sophocles’ renowned play “Antigone”, we should first consider both the elements present in Greek tragedies and what characteristics define a tragic hero. Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is: “Tragedy is a story taking the hero from happiness to misery because of a fatal flaw or mistake on his part. To be a true tragic hero he must also elicit a strong emotional response of pity and fear from the audience. This is known as catharsis or purging of emotion.” In most cases the tragic hero begins

When the title of a play is a character's name, it is normally assumed that the character is the protagonist of the play. In Sophocles' Antigone, most people probably believe Antigone to be the tragic heroine, even after they have finished watching the play. It may be argued, however, that Creon, not Antigone, is the tragic character. When we examine the nature and concept of the Greek Tragedy and what it means to be a tragic character, it becomes clear that Creon is indeed the tragic hero of the play Antigone.

Reading through three related stories, we discover different motifs denoting author’s thought in different time.Without any doubt, the tragic essence goes through the Three Theban Plays. As Sophocles meditates the philosophy of the tragedy all along his life, the tragic essence expands from individuals in a society. The conflict in each play becomes increasingly complicated. In Antigone, we can clearly distinguish the conflict between Antigone and Creon, family and politics. However, in Oedipus at Colonus, the play merges all the conflicts happened to former plays and enhances the theme of the story. The later part of this trilogy, especially the ending of Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, reveals a darker and deeper phenomenon of Thebes and projects it to Oedipus. The prophet plays important role of forming the story line and tragic image of Oedipus, but the root causing the series of tragedy of the characters is not gods’ command. It is degeneration of people, which is pathetic to humanity. Finally, after suffering from family complex and exile, Oedipus is not only a victim of the society, but also the reflection of the twisted humanity of Thebes.