Campbell Monomyth in Quest for Camelot Essay

Heroism is not limited to a specific type of person. Anybody can beheroic the question is what makes a heroic person a hero? According toJoseph Campbell and his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces, there is aspecific journey that every hero must follow, "separation-initiation-return, which might be named the nuclear monomyth" (23.) Campbell'smonomyth argues that at the core of all heroes, myths, stories and fairytales, there is only one layout of steps for a hero's journey. The filmindustry has adopted his theory and morphed it to their needs. Quest forCamelot is a children's movie based in Arthurian England when Camelotexisted. The Movie follows main character, Kayley, on her journey with afew friends to save Camelot from the evil clutches of ex-knight, Ruber, whokilled her father. Kayley and her friends are considered to be the heroesof the movie, but do not necessarily match Joseph Campbell's theory of ahero's journey. Quest for Camelot is a somewhat dark story thatincorporates many stages of a hero's journey according Joseph Campbell, butincludes a second, "Disney formula" that the movie follows as well, makingthe movie and the heroes on a separate level than many other animatedmovies.Darkness of film Many animated children's movies are light hearted, fun, magical andmany times disregarded when thinking of heroes. Quest for Camelot is a funand magical journey, but is not light hearted. The tasks at hand for theheroes, Kayley, Garret, Devon, and Cornwall are colossal. The movie beginswith the death of Kayley's father. In regards to children's movies, deathis not usually involved and scares most children. When the journey ispresented to young hero Kayley, the entire kingdom's future safety lies inher hands. Ruber, the villain trying to take over Camelot, explains hisplan for the kingdom in a very passionate song, "let's go back to war andviolence...Your worst dream! That's my idea...let's go back to good old baddays" (CITEEE.) Ruber makes it clear that he is...

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