Resources for Literature Students: Part 1

At Nursing Writing Help, we understand that literature students in the United Kingdom, the United States, the larger Europe, Australia, Africa, and worldwide face wide-ranging challenges. A growing number has informed our customers’ conclusions citing their inability to analyze literary texts, primarily short stories, novels, films/movies, and poetry.

Resources for Literature Students

Recent studies have also illustrated significant issues high school, college, and university students experience when understanding literary texts. For example, this study revealed that most learners do not understand the relationship/connection between the poet/author/writer, the text’s period/era, and the subject matter or theme.

One of our professors and writers recently argued that students with editing tasks have difficulty finding their figures of speech, applying their readings to real-life situations, and identifying and explaining a literary work’s specific genre. If you are there and are a victim of these challenges, worry no more because Nursing Writing Help has got you covered!

In this article, we have developed a strategy to ease your work regarding literature, especially when it comes to reading, understanding, interpreting, and applying literary texts. In particular, we argue that most films, books, poems, and other works of literature follow the same/basic/fundamental trajectory known as the MONOMYTH.

We believe you must have come across “THE HERO’S JOURNEY.”

Created/developed by Joseph Campbell, a celebrated American scholar, the monomyth encompasses a template of stories involving heroes on adventures. Commonly known as the hero’s journey, it paints a picture of a hero who achieves victory amid critical crises and emerges as a transformed or changed person.

According to Campbell, the hero’s journey comprises 12 stages and 7 archetypes. Virtually all stories have these components.

At Nursing Writing Help, we have summarized the 12 fundamental stages as follows:

  1. The ordinary/day-to-day world
  2. Call to adventure/journey
  3. Refusal
  4. Meeting the mentor
  5. Crossing the gate/threshold
  6. Tests/temptations, enemies, & allies
  7. Approach
  8. The misery/ordeal/nightmare
  9. The reward/achievement
  10. The journey/road back home
  11. The resurrection
  12. Return with the solution/elixir/answer

As we mentioned previously, the other essential aspect of the monomyth is the seven basic archetypal characters, including:

  1. The hero
  2. The herald
  3. The mentor
  4. The threshold guardians
  5. The trickster
  6. The shape-shifter
  7. The shadow   

Having identified the various challenges facing you as a literature student and described Nursing Writing Help’s strategy to overcome them, let’s now give you an essay sample on monomyth. The essay is written in the American Psychological Association (APA) format.

We are very specific here. We have used a set of questions to describe some of the stages of the hero’s journey, provided examples from particular literary texts, and related them to our daily experiences with films. In addition, we have defined a hero, including which characters or attributes are unique to them.

Now, you can sit down and read through carefully, starting with the highlighted questions.

Sample Essay Questions

Stages of the Monomyth:

Describe at least two stages of the monomyth and provide examples from the readings of each of these stages. Do you also see these stages in movies? In what ways?

What Makes a Hero?: Pick one of the heroes from the readings (Perseus, Theseus, Hercules, Atalanta, Odysseus). What makes this figure a hero? What does this hero’s story tell us about what traits ancient Greek society admired and valued? Are these similar or different to what contemporary culture views as a hero? Why or why not? 

The solution to Essay Questions

Monomyth Stages

According to Joseph Campbell, the monomyth refers to the hero’s journey. In other words, every hero passes through specific stages or steps before returning victorious. In particular, stage two involves a call to adventure, while the fifth is tests. The call to adventure occurs when the hero leaves the ordinary to enter the unknown or special one. The hero is no longer assured of the safety they previously knew. The hero’s attempt to resist the call becomes futile in the end. In this respect, the call to adventure assumes different forms, as captured in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” By Rawlings (1997). In this novel, Harry, the main character, receives many letters in extraordinary or magical ways even when he ignores them. The fifth stage, tests, involves the hero facing violent encounters.

In many cases, the hero fights various forces of nature, monsters, deadly warriors, wizards, or sorcerers. By overcoming each test, the hero demonstrates their ability to advance towards ultimate victory. Campbell provided an example by referring to a hero in the whale’s belly. Notably, these stages have been incorporated in movies. For instance, “The Hobbit” depicts Bilbo as the savior of the dwarves. However, he faces significant challenges, including answering challenging riddles and leading the dwarves through giant spiders.

Hero

A hero is their ability to embark on risk-laden journeys to save themselves and their societies. The journey could be figurative or literal, suggesting the hero often travels into hell, death, evil, the enemy’s backyard, or chaos but eventually emerges victorious. In “Hercules,” the main character, Hercules, is a hero because they perform the most challenging and seemingly impossible tasks or labors (Storrie, 2007). Similarly, he uses his massive strength and cunning skills to save the people. Hercules’ story suggests that Ancient Greece admired and valued courage, intelligence, and superhuman fighting skills. In comparison, contemporary culture sees a hero as a courageous and intelligent person, whereas Ancient Greek society associated heroes with supernatural powers. Present-day society sees heroism in professionals’ abilities to discover effective drugs for viral and chronic diseases and new drought-resistant crops.

References

Campbell, J. (1968). A Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York City, NY: Pantheon Books.

Rowlings, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London, U.K.: Bloomsbury.

Storrie, P. (2007). Hercules: The Twelve Labors: A geek myth. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graphic Universe.

Now that you have understood what a monomyth is, would you like our custom essay experts to help you score an A and dramatically increase your GPA? Consider visiting our site for the best offers. We emphasize quality, originality, timely delivery, and extensive research to deliver the best research papers, essays, and customized services for college students like you.

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Resources for Literature Students Part 2

In Part 1 of our “Resources for Literature Students,” we highlighted common challenges individual learners across the US, the UK, Australia, Africa, and worldwide face. We found that these students experience difficulty gaining a deeper understanding of literary texts. In addition, they often encounter wide-ranging challenges in interpreting and applying these stories to real-life situations.

Nursing Writing Help wrote a short sample paper to describe how you can easily understand, interpret, and apply for literary works in response to these problems. Our team of dedicated and result-driven writers and editors first discussed “The Hero’s Journey,” commonly known as the Monomyth, to demonstrate how the 12 basic stages and 7 archetypal characters cut across narratives or stories in comparative mythology and the world of narratology. We hope the material has been of great help to you in your literature course.

Tricksters

Today, we have decided to look into another genre: tricksters.

What comes into mind when you hear the word/term “trickster?” Your guess is as right as mine: tricks, cunning people, confidence, cheats, or fraudsters. Oxford English Dictionary defines a trickster as a person/individual/animal that deceives others to have their way.

Our decision to assess tricksters emphasizes the need for literature students to master the art of interpretation and the applicability of literary concepts. As we have stated in previous resources and articles, we do not only offer custom essay writing services. Still, we are also focused on teaching you the tricks of success in your literature class.

Sample Description/Assessment of Tricksters

In this sample paper written in APA style, we use the following questions to elaborate on what tricksters stand for, their importance, and their implications.

Read on as you take notes because most of our writers are practicing teachers who recognize the significance of note-taking.

The Meaning of Tricksters: What is the purpose of having a trickster or tricks? What do we learn from these stories? Is the world better off with tricksters in it or without? Why? How should we define tricksters? Use examples from the readings to support your points. 

The Meaning of Tricksters

Definition

While there is no consensus about what should constitute the functional definition of tricksters, they often possess common characteristics that provide insights into their meaning. Expressly, tricksters can assume different forms and demonstrate various positive and negative attributes: cunning, intelligence, heroes, or villains (Hawkins et al., 2015). From these traits, tricksters refer to weaker and more minor characters, mostly animals, in folklore using knowledge, wisdom, and deceptive abilities to overcome, win over, or disadvantage more powerful figures; thus, getting what they want. A trickster is a master at rules-bending to get their way in this respect. Sometimes tricksters cannot escape their comeuppance, but they usually escape punishment. A typical case involves “Brer Rabbit,” quick-witted enough to get away with his cunning activities (Harris, 2006). Therefore, the primary purpose of having tricks is to teach about behavior and treat others in society. Tricksters have another goal: amusement or entertainment because most trickster tales are funny.  

Lessons

A trickster story serves two significant purposes: educating about acceptable and unacceptable behavior and entertainment. These purposes translate to overt moral stories for kids and adults alike, especially when the tale has perfect and imperfect characters. Critics may question the educative value of reading or watching a mischievous character who always escapes consequences for their actions. Their concern is that such trickster stories give the audience a brilliant opportunity to discuss right and wrong. Second, children learn from these tales without being force-fed morally acceptable behaviors. In other words, the stories allow the reader to decide independently. For example, the viewer can be Mr. Sammy Whiskers or Peter in “Peter Rabbit” (Peter Rabbit, 2020). The former breaks the rules to get treats from unsuspecting characters until Peter finally outwits him. Finally, trickster stories are memorable because the target audience, children, are personally involved in the journey characterized by pranks, successes, failures, and retribution.

Impact on the World

The world is better with tricksters because trickster tales make it habitable and exciting. Expressly, a trickster tale revolves around imaginative narratives, which challenge the audience to be wary of fake friends, unseen danger, and immoral behavior, such as dishonesty. Through tricksters, the reader learns the significance of being more competent and avoiding acting like a buffoon in all situations.

References

Harris, J. (2006). The adventures of Bret Rabbit and friends. London, U.K.: DK Publishing.

Hawkins, J., Agnello, M., & Lucey, T. (2015). Villain or hero: Student interpretations of African trickster tales. Multicultural Education, 20-26. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1078682.pdf

Peter Rabbit. (2020). Peter Rabbit – Easter special! | Cartoons for kids. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sFj8Q3Z1Ak

Salinas, C. (2013). Trickster dialogics: A method for articulating cultural archetypes from ‘Q’ to performance art. Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. https://repository.asu.edu/attachments/110390/content/Salinas_asu_0010E_12837.pdf

Resources for Literature Students

The Bottomline

As you have read and seen in the sample custom essay, we have defined tricksters, stated their purpose and impact, and identified lessons learned from these stories. At Nursing Writing Help, we follow instructions to the letter. This explains why we have captured and addressed all questions. You do not need to be unsettled once your term paper, essay, or class assignment is within our academic writing docket.

Fast forward…

Resources for Literature Students

What do you think about the level of our writing? Perfect? We guess so because we don’t disappoint on a bit. Our authors know where and when to use topic sentences, supporting details, examples, in-text citations, and concluding sentences.

We are more than willing and ready 24/7 to do that just for you. We have customized approximately 900 literature essays in the past 24 months. So, you can trust us when you need a perfect, well-thought, humor-laden, properly cited, and well-researched and referenced custom research paper or custom essay in poetry, short stories, novels, and other literary texts.

Nursing Writing Help thrives in a zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism, poor writing, grammatical errors, and incorrect formatting. Visit us today and order your custom essay online.