Robert Neville as a classical hero: Final Project analysis

Robert Neville as a classical hero

Alix Wright

Final project analysis

A hero, according to classical mythology, is a man of “royal birth or even, like the Titan Prometheus, half mortal, half god.  He must perform extraordinary feats. His is a noble character which is close to perfectly ideal but for a fatal flaw. The suffering of the character is physical. Death must occur in an unusual way. The hero fights for his own honor; his deeds belong to the community only after his death.” (Vera Norman from: Four Conceptions of the Heroic http://www.fellowshipofreason.com/archives/4heroes.htm) Robert Neville is actually an antihero. An antihero is a character who “lacks the attributes that make a heroic figure, as nobility of mind and spirit, a life or attitude marked by action or purpose.” (www.dictionary.com) His purpose may be to survive but he is not doing anything for the greater good.

For my final project I wrote a short story modeling Neville after the classical hero. I made him the son of a scientist who first discovered the vampire virus because there would be no gods in modern western society. I did this because the person who discovered or created the bacteria created the fate of the humans much like a god would. His extraordinary feats were attempting to save the dog and the child that he thought was not infected. His fatal flaw is science. In looking for a cure or a cause for the bacteria he brought about his death when he attracted the attention of the conscious vampires (versus the dead ones who were only reanimated flesh.) In keeping true to the original story I kept his death the same the fact that he is the anomaly and the thing to be feared is enough of an unusual death. In my story he is fighting for his honor and not just for survival because he wants to make up for the pandemic his father unleashed onto the world.

My purpose in writing this short story was to play around with the idea of the hero and to see how the profoundness of realizing that you are the “other” would play out if you were a person who believed you were fighting for the good of all. The form of my story is after the hero’s journey by Joseph Campbell. Who argued along with Jung that the hero is always the same. In every culture the hero’s story follows the same pattern as shown here from The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

 

The outline of the journey is as follows:

I.                  Departure
- The Call to Adventure
- Refusal of the Call
- Supernatural Aid
- The Crossing of the First Threshold
- The Belly of the Whale

II. Initiation
- The Road of Trials
- The Meeting with the Goddess
- Woman as the Temptress
- Atonement with the Father
- Apotheosis
- The Ultimate Boon

III. Return
- Refusal of the Return
- The Magic Flight
- Rescue from Without
- The Crossing of the Return Threshold
- Master of the Two Worlds
- Freedom to Live

The departure is the beginning of the hero’s journey. It starts out with a call to adventure. For Neville the call to adventure came previous to my story when the pandemic started. Campbell calls it “the awakening of the self” (p.51 The Hero with a Thousand faces from now on will be referred to as HWTF.) For my Neville this awakening was the realization that his father was the cause of the pandemic and his decision to make it right again by finding the cure. My story starts with the refusal of the call where Neville just wants to survive. He goes about his business vampire proofing the house and collecting supplies to last him through until someone else comes to rescue him.

Supernatural aid, according to Joseph Campbell is when a “protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass”(HWTFp.69). The dragon forces are the struggles. Since Neville is the only human left the supernatural aid comes in the form of his conscience and his memories of what his father was trying to accomplish.

Crossing the first threshold is when the hero moves from the known to the unknown. For my Neville this comes about when he starts researching the disease and when he starts experimenting with his cures on the vampires.

In part II of the hero’s journey the hero is coming closer to his goal. For Neville that comes about with the cure that works for a little while but  it also sowed the seeds for his destruction because he was taking so many vampires off the street he became noticed. Ruth was sent (woman as the temptress) to learn about his doings and he was judged to be a danger to her new society.

In the end Neville is killed because he is a danger and an “other”  which fulfills the criteria for an unusual death. At the end of my story as compared to the novel, Neville is reborn as a vampire to keep with the archetypal hero’s journey and also with classical mythology. Heroes are rewarded for their deeds by the gods getting sent to the Elysian Fields (nirvana, heaven…) so his rebirth as a vampire is allowing him to be a part of this new society.

I think I captured Neville’s voice well but I had to change it slightly because I could not have my classical hero being so pessimistic. It was interesting trying to change some aspects of his character with out completely changing him so that he would be unrecognizable. The only aspect that I am not fond of with my short story is the fact that my Neville closely resembles the Neville from the movie starring Will Smith. It was hard to move away from that version of Neville because in the movie he is more heroic than in the novel. He does not have such dark moods and he is trying to turn the vampires he catches human again instead of just killing them.

When I was writing this story I did a lot of research first. I reread the novel and then I looked into the classical hero and the hero’s journey but once I write it I don’t revise that much. I really only check for grammar and spelling because I find that if I revise I lose the voice of the piece and it no longer flows or sounds authentic.

What I liked most about my story was my character Neville. I really did not like Neville from the novel. I thought he was vile and boring so I got rid of the characteristics that I did not like (lucky for me the characteristics I did not like made him an antihero.) So I am particularly proud of him as a character.