Is the hero’s journey ethical?

This essay examines the tropes of the hero’s journey home, and his quest to protect home, as portrayed by Hollywood (using the blockbusters Inception (2010) and Star Trek (2009), as well as in the art house film Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) as a reference), and studies the ethics of the hero and his...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Koh, Jia Ling.
Other Authors: Brian Keith Bergen-Aurand
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46387
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author Koh, Jia Ling.
author2 Brian Keith Bergen-Aurand
author_facet Brian Keith Bergen-Aurand
Koh, Jia Ling.
author_sort Koh, Jia Ling.
collection NTU
description This essay examines the tropes of the hero’s journey home, and his quest to protect home, as portrayed by Hollywood (using the blockbusters Inception (2010) and Star Trek (2009), as well as in the art house film Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) as a reference), and studies the ethics of the hero and his journey: to see if the hero is indeed heroic, or ethical. In this essay, ethics does not concern itself with power or knowledge or even morality; rather, it is ethics as defined by Emmanuel Levinas to be the first principle of being—to be responsible for the Other that is not myself. It argues that the hero's journey should not be positively presumed as a right or an obligation; nor should they be taken as a show of the triumph of the human spirit as they are wont to be; rather, they are ethical questions to be posed in terms of how the hero treats the Other, especially when the Other is the enemy.
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spelling ntu-10356/463872019-12-10T14:36:31Z Is the hero’s journey ethical? Koh, Jia Ling. Brian Keith Bergen-Aurand School of Humanities and Social Sciences DRNTU::Humanities::Literature This essay examines the tropes of the hero’s journey home, and his quest to protect home, as portrayed by Hollywood (using the blockbusters Inception (2010) and Star Trek (2009), as well as in the art house film Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) as a reference), and studies the ethics of the hero and his journey: to see if the hero is indeed heroic, or ethical. In this essay, ethics does not concern itself with power or knowledge or even morality; rather, it is ethics as defined by Emmanuel Levinas to be the first principle of being—to be responsible for the Other that is not myself. It argues that the hero's journey should not be positively presumed as a right or an obligation; nor should they be taken as a show of the triumph of the human spirit as they are wont to be; rather, they are ethical questions to be posed in terms of how the hero treats the Other, especially when the Other is the enemy. Bachelor of Arts 2011-12-05T07:52:35Z 2011-12-05T07:52:35Z 2011 2011 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46387 en Nanyang Technological University 31 p. application/msword
spellingShingle DRNTU::Humanities::Literature
Koh, Jia Ling.
Is the hero’s journey ethical?
title Is the hero’s journey ethical?
title_full Is the hero’s journey ethical?
title_fullStr Is the hero’s journey ethical?
title_full_unstemmed Is the hero’s journey ethical?
title_short Is the hero’s journey ethical?
title_sort is the hero s journey ethical
topic DRNTU::Humanities::Literature
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46387
work_keys_str_mv AT kohjialing istheherosjourneyethical