In Which a Free Reading Book Shall be Attempted to be Analyzed

I recently read Impossible by Nancy Werlin. In short (hopefully) it is about a girl who lives with a foster family due to her crazy/mad mother. Lucy Scarborough goes to prom for the first time and is date raped (very out of character of her boyfriend who promptly commits suicide). Her best friend from childhood, Zach, comes to live with her and her family for the summer. They find out through her mother's (the mad one) diaries that it is a family curse for the girl to become pregnant at 18 (or 17), and upon the birth of her child (always a daughter), they go mad. The only way to stop this cycle is to perform the tasks in the "Scarborough Fair" song, including making a seamless shirt, finding an acre of land between the salt and the sea, plowing it with a goats horn and sowing it with a single grain of sand. The curse was implemented due to unrequited love by the "Elfin Knight" who also constantly thwarts any attempt to break it. Throughout the book Lucy and Zach (who fall in love and end up getting married half way through) and her family attempt to figure out how to break the curse before her daughter is born.

There appears to be many different types of heroes/sheroes within Impossible. There are the failed sheroes, the previous generations of Scarborough Girls. Lucy's foster parents are strong and end up helping to make a seamless shirt (home made felt on a dummy). There is also Lucy, the main sheroe, and Zach, the main hero.

Werlin emphasizes the importance of working together-the us rather than me. The previous girls did not have the support Lucy had and tended to be on their own attempting the "impossible" tasks, beginning the theory of madness and weak minds, which carried through the generations. However, Lucy is able to succeed with the help of her family, friends, and Zach.

Thus, there appears to be no one, individual hero, but rather a group that together creates and embodies the hero.

Does this imply then, that our society values the team rather than the individual accomplishment? We prefer to honor many rather than one? Or is it that we do not have confidence in the individual?

Ohh! Is it that when we do have confidence in the individual, we ask too much of them, and they fail, like the Scarborough girls did. That modern hero-requiring-acts-of-awesomeness actually require many to be completed?

Hmm...

In Which We (ok...I) Attempt to Begin

By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves."
-C.S. Lewis from The Dethronement of Power
(an essay on J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings)

Stories, tales, legends, fantasies--they define reality. Without them, we are nothing.

Myths breathe life into existence--they teach us what we are, who we are, why we are. They tell tales of old, of days gone by when bravery was status quo, and the only thing that mattered was honor. They speak of heroes, treasure, danger, greed, pride, and where there be dragons. They tell us the way life should be lived.

The myths that surround us define who we are. Our flights in imagination are journeys of self discovery. Through our fantasies, our personalized myths, we discover what we truly value in life.

Therefore, how does the role of the hero/sheroe change throughout culture, and what does that say about the society a) about which the piece was written, or, b) about the period during which the piece was written?

Oedipus, in Oedipus Rex, is seen initially as the hero of Thebes--he saves them from the Sphinx. However, after Thebes becomes cursed due to Oedipus and his killing-his-father-and-sleeping-with-his-mother issue, the true hero comes out. He is so disgusted with himself and what he has done that he blinds himself, so never to judge a "sightless" man again. He also continues his self-imposed universal hatred and exile. That he is seen in the middle as being irrational and rash only solidifies his heroic act of continuing his self-imposed exile. This shows his true mettle...that he stands by his word and is unafraid to stand by his honor.

Within The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, Quoyle is the sympathetic hero. He is the classic nobody, no-how, no-where. His life is a small cul-de-sac that he is incapable of escaping. By moving to the place of his ancestors, Newfoundland, he turns his life around and becomes (almost) all the reader hopes for. Through The Shipping News, Proulx reveals her values of standing for one's self, family, beliefs, and honor. Quoyle learns about his (less than flattering)family history and about those he is surrounded by. Through his new friends, like his boss/father-figure Jack, he learns about what "Newfoundlanders" value. And thus, he shapes his life anew.

Through my own personal flights of imagination, my heroes/sheroes embody (often) that which I whish I had. Everything from hand-eye coordination to bravery and non-chicken-ness. During one period of reality hitting fast and furious all around, I convinced that it was self-failing. I have since come to believe that it is instead how we define ourselves...at least how we feel we should be. And through this, our culture (self, community, national, world, etc.) can be derived.

"The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by "the veil of familiarity."
-C.S. Lewis from The Dethronement of Power

(an essay on J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings)

In Which We Concern The Big Question:

Don, don, DON!! *ominous music plays in the background*

Ideas:
>Mythology...
>>>How is bravery viewed and portrayed? What does this say about the culture a) about which the piece was written, or, b) about the time/values during which the piece was written?
>>>Do the attributes of a hero remain the same over time? (From http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Essential%20Questions/heroes&sheroes.htm )
>>>What is the role of a hero or "sheroe" (coined by Maya Angelou) in a culture? (From http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Essential%20Questions/heroes&sheroes.htm )
>>>When does a positive personality trait become a tragic flaw? (From http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Essential%20Questions/heroes&sheroes.htm )
>How are cultural ideals seen through literature and how does it change?
>How is love viewed?
>What compromises are made/why? What is required for a compromise?
>The order of chaos...how even when there appears to be no reason or sense, there is an order.
>How is "happiness" viewed and pursued/achieved?
>What is "success" and how is it defined, viewed, and pursued?

To be (or not to be) continued...THAT is the Big Question...