Rhonda Does Research: 01/01/2013

Sunday, January 27, 2013

A Whole Bunch o' Heroes

When I was reading the first page in the assignment packet about our research options, I got an idea from the very short explanation of myth criticism: "Films and other works of art draw on patterns established in cultural myths." I read down to the list of films we can use, and the one I was thinking of (The Fellowship of the Ring) was there. My idea was that one of the myth patterns in this film is (and this is really hard to state clearly, so bear with me) a group of heroes goes on a quest together. This came to me because when I read the statement about myth crit, I immediately thought of a few myths, one of which was the story of Jason and the Argonauts (I saw a movie of that when I was little, and it stuck with me because the army of skeletons gave me nightmares for a long time). I also remember an episode of Hercules (the tv show), where he went to see Jason and the rest of the Argonauts.

I want to talk to the prof about this some, just in case I'm totally on the wrong track, so I guess I'm getting up early tomorrow to make it to her office hours.

Myth Crit-- I Think I Get It

Hero's Journey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I just read the handout on myth criticism (it's on our Blackboard page now, guys), and so I thought this would be a good time to do my next posting, which is supposed to be me explaining my critical model. Here goes nothing.

Myth criticism is centered around patterns of elements in stories (or poetry, or any kind of art) that are also found in myths. After reading through the quest structure, it seems pretty obvious to me that this model makes a lot of sense, in that you really can see the quest turning up everywhere. And, the quest is the hero's journey, right? So, it's also easy to see how the hero archetype works. And right there I'm thinking that I now have enough to go on to another posting, because it looks like my first thoughts about LOTR might work okay for this approach.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

New Year, New Semester, New Research Project

Film poster for The Lord of the Rings: The Fel...

For once, I'm getting a jump on my homework-- English 102 doesn't start until tomorrow, but yesterday I checked to see if the instructor (a Dr. Toffee; I don't know her) had anything on Blackboard. She did. I read the syllabus and the assignment sheets, and this blog is Project 1. Since it is now set up and working, I guess I've made a good start.

According to the assignment sheet for Project 1 (I put a copy in the pages block to the left of this posting so you can see it), this first post of the semester is supposed to be discussing my "initial thoughts on [my] film and approach." What that is referring to is the topic for our research project (I also put up a copy of the topic sheet in the pages block). I have some initial thoughts, but they'll probably change when I have more details about what's involved. So far, I've selected a film, The Fellowship of the Ring, and my critical approach/model is myth criticism (I've sort of got an idea there, but I'll save that for a later post, mainly because I don't know much about myth criticism yet and I don't want to look like an idiot). I thought about using The Avengers, but (thanks to my family) I'm so much more familiar with LOTR that it should make it easier to analyze. I hope.

And, I just realized that I'm way over the 100 words I needed to write. It's not a problem, at least I don't think it is, but I'll check tomorrow.