The Hero's Journey

Introduction

For the Hero’s Journey analysis I will be comparing and contrasting the hero’s journey of Xander Carrow, from the book Reached by Ally Condie and the hero’s journey of Luke Skywalker, from the film Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope. Throughout this essay, I will discuss each of their calls, thresholds, challenges, abysses, atonements and returns. And finally, I will compare their calls, thresholds, challenges, abysses, atonements and returns with each other.

The call

Xander is called to the adventure when he was a teenager and the Rising (rebellion) asked him to join the fight against the Society (civilization that has the same principals as communism, but does not allow their citizens to create things like painting, handwriting, etc.). Wanting to restore the rights of his people and bring down the Society, Xander accepts the call.

Luke Skywalker is called to the adventure when Obi-Wan Kenobi asks Luke to come to Alderaan with him to become a Jedi Knight and save Princess Leila. However, Luke Skywalker refuses the call claiming that he is needed on the moisture farm, causing his uncle and aunt to be killed by Stormtroopers. Having nothing left for him on Tatooine, he accepts the call and joins Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The differences between Xander’s and Luke Skywalker’s call are that Xander accepted his call without any hesitation, while Luke declined and his parents ended up dying as a punishment. Also, Luke accepted the call because he wanted revenge and there was nothing left for him, while Xander accepted the call because he wanted to restore the rights of his people and bring down the Society.

The threshold

Xander passed through the threshold when he embarked on his first mission for the Rising, giving out immunizations for the Plague to newborn babies. This was the threshold because prior to this, he had done nothing to rebel against the Society. The threshold guardian in this was his fear of being caught, because only he could have stopped him from embarking on his journey.

Luke Skywalker did his threshold when he traveled to Mos Eisely spaceport with 3CPO, R2D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi to travel to Alderaan to become a Jedi Knight. The threshold guardian in this was Obi-Wan Kenobi because he was the person who was going to teach Luke Skywalker and if he didn’t think he was ready; Luke would not be able to embark on his journey.

The differences in the threshold of Xander and Luke are the following; Xander had a mental threshold guardian and not a physical one and his “jumping of point” was giving pills to babies, not training to become a Jedi and traveling in between galaxies to a different planet. Also Luke Skywalker had guides (3CPO and R2D2) and a mentor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), while Xander has yet to receive his.

The challenges

Due to