Proposing a Hero!

I was just thinking I had all my homework done for tomorrow when I reread the critical analysis project assignment and realized that the proposal is due tomorrow, too.  Waah.  Here goes:

My critical analysis paper will be on Guardians of the Galaxy, and I will be applying a myth criticism approach.  I am interested in Peter Quill/Star Lord as a hero and how he measures up against the many hero archetypes.  He's not exactly what might be expected as a hero:  he's sarcastic, self-absorbed, and prone to bragging, and he is a criminal, on top of all that.  The scene I have chosen to focus on is the prologue, which gives information about the birth stage of his hero's journey.  My concerns about these choices center around material.  At this point, I'm not sure that there will be enough.

It only needed to be 100 words, so I hope this will work. 

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• Guardians of the Galaxy director offers more hints about Peter Quill's father (digitaltrends.com)
• 'Guardians of the Galaxy 2′: James Gunn Talks Ronan, Nebula, Groot & More (screenrant.com)
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New Ideas for the Research Project

Bilbo writing There and Back Again in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring; note subtitle "A Hobbit's Tale" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I know I've fallen behind, so you can expect to see several entries in the near future.  I've been working on my literature review, mainly focussing on hero archetypes, and I think I've reached the point where it's not going to get any better.  Therefore, I'm moving on to the research paper itself, and I just got some more ideas by watching The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey yesterday.  There's an interesting contrast between its overall story and that of The Fellowship of the Ring when it comes to the makeup of the band of questers in each.  The guys in The Hobbit are NOT all heroes, unlike the fellowship members.

Once I noticed that, I started having some self-discussion (am I inventing that term?) about what the difference means, which led me to some other thoughts about what exactly makes the FOTR guys heroes that The Hobbit's characters lack.  And I'll talk about that next time.

Related articles

• NVivo for Literature Reviews (pennwic.wordpress.com)
• 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Joins The Billionaires Club (moviesblog.mtv.com)
• 10 things you might not know about 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' (digitaltrends.com)
• What Writers Can Learn From The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (kourtneyheintz.wordpress.com)
• First Impressions (teachingtolkien.com)
• The Hobbit Game Armies of the Third Age Launches (video) (geeky-gadgets.com)
• The Fellowship of the Ring Assembled (starrymantle.wordpress.com)

Research Plan- Hero Archetypes

The Power of Interlibrary Loan (Photo credit: Newton Free Library)

I turned in my research proposal on Wednesday, and I think it was okay.  Now I'm supposed to be coming up with a research plan (through 3/27), and I need to get going, because the annotated working bibliography is due on 3/13.  What I've done so far is kind of random:  searching the web for usable (i.e. scholarly) sites, a stab at finding journal articles, and a quick book search.  Even though The Fellowship of the Ring is not a superhero story, I thought that I had found a good book for the project in Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal, by Jeffrey J. Kripal, because of the way it was described, so I ordered it on interlibrary loan, but it's not very helpful as far as I can see (it's interesting, though, and I had to keep myself from just reading it anyway).  I'm going to get more organized, starting now. 
Here's my plan:
Week 4 (this week):  Search for book reviews in Academic Search Premier (Dr. Toffee showed us in class that you can click on book review in the document type menu and it'll sort them out for you).  I'll have to skim the reviews for now, and then I'll get at least three of the books from the library or ILL.  
Week 5 (2/18):  Assuming I get the books right away, I'll read their introductions and check the index and table of contents for stuff specifically about heroes and hero archetypes.  And, I'll do the MLA works cited entries and annotations to start my bib.
Week 6 (2/25):  Articles!  Have to find them, then read them, and that may take me through week 7 (3/4).  I want to do the entries and annotations as I go so that all I have to do in order to turn in the bib on 3/13 is double check the MLA rules.
The literature review draft is due on 3/19, so I also intend to pull out the sources for that as I'm compiling the bib.  By that time, I should have a good idea (I hope!) of whatever else I'll need to write the argument essay, which I will then try to locate, and that takes me up to 3/27 (week 9). 

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