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Star Wars Essay Research Paper Star Wars (стр. 2 из 3)

Eisley is where Luke sells his landspeeder, a representation of his

former life, and enlists Han Solo’s aid. The Threshold contains a

guardian of some sort which must be passed. This guardian dwells

within the Threshold, and is usually a creature or living enemy.

Heimdall was guarded by a god of the same name whose sole

purpose was to prevent the crossing of the bridge by mortals.

Luke’s first encounter with such a danger occurs while Ben and he

are attempting to enter the spaceport. They enter the city with

See-Threepio and Artoo–Detoo, and are stopped by a group of

stormtroopers. The stormtroopers, which are the Empire’s

standard soldiers, are searching for the droids, and begin to

question Luke about his ownership of them. Ben uses the Force to

exert mind control over them, and convinces them to allow Luke

and him to pass. This is Luke’s first taste of the magical power

which he himself will come to possess.

Another significant encounter takes place in the Cantina,

Mos Eisley’s combination bar/information center. While talking

to Chewbacca, first mate aboard the Millennium Falcon, about

securing passage, Luke is left alone for a brief time. He is bullied

by Ponda Baba, a walrus-headed monster. Ben attempts to calm

the situation by offering him a drink, but Ponda Baba’s friend, a

humanoid mercenary who has “the death sentence in twelve

systems,” attacks him. Ben slices off Ponda Baba’s arm with his

lightsaber and ends the conflict. Here Luke first witnesses Ben’s

power in combat. According to Campbell, this is characteristic of

the Threshold. In addition to being the gate to the Realm of

Adventure, it offers the Hero his first glimpse into a bigger world.

The Hero exits the Threshold eager for more excitement and

mentally more able to accept the wonders he will face.

After leaving his Homeland, the Hero finds himself faced

with many challenges along the path to adventure. After

overcoming these challenges, the Hero is then presented with a

final difficult task and finally the prize. In one Germanic/Norse

myth, the hero, a mighty warrior named Siegfried, seeks to win the

hand of Brunhilde in marriage. Brunhilde has been asleep many

years atop a mountain, placed there by her father Odin as a

punishment. Siegfried sets out and must fight many monsters and

face myriad obstacles to reach the mountain. Once there, he is

faced with Odin disguised as an old man. Siegfried passes by Odin

by breaking Odin’s staff–representative of disarming him. Upon

climbing the mountain, he is faced with a curtain of magical fire

which circles the sleeping Brunhilde. The only way anyone can

pass through the flame is to plunge immediately into it without

hesitation, and Siegfried does so, making his way to his bride.

Luke faces obstacles from the start, but unlike Siegfried, he is

unable to cope with all of them by himself. He is aided by helpers

as described above. After facing the obstacles, the Hero enters the

Land of Enchantment. In A New Hope, Luke enters the Death Star

and attempts to rescue Princess Leia. The Death Star is Luke’s

Land of Enchantment, where he faces most of his personal

challenges.

Here there is a minor discrepancy between the hero cycle

in A New Hope and that in most other mythologies. In nearly

every folk tale or legend, the obtaining of the prize is preceded by

the Supreme Ordeal, a task of seemingly impossible difficulty.

Siegfried’s Supreme Ordeal was the fiery curtain. Perseus had to

kill a monster he couldn’t look at. The Hero’s Supreme Ordeal

was the biggest, most impressive encounter he had to face, and

was the highlight of his adventure. Luke’s rescue of Princess Leia

was indeed spectacular and daring, as he and Han had to cope with

a space station full of enemy soldiers, but the rescue is eclipsed by

Luke’s destruction of the Death Star at the end of the movie. This

was presumably done because A New Hope was an action movie,

which as a rule needs to present a final conflict at the conclusion

rather than the climax. Therefore, Luke’s Supreme Ordeal, the

destruction of the Death Star, is separate from his prize, the rescue

of Princess Leia.

Upon entering the Land of Enchantment, the Hero is

typically left to his own devices to complete his quest. If the Hero

has learned his lessons well and fulfilled his role, he will do well

and succeed. If not, his quest is doomed to fail. The Greek Hero

Orpheus is an example of such an unfortunate. Orpheus fell in

love with a girl named Eurydice and they intended to wed. Several

days before their wedding, the girl stepped on and was bitten by a

venomous snake, and later died. Orpheus determined to go to

Hades to retrieve her. Orpheus, whose mother was Calliope, the

muse of poets and musicians, was widely known as the most

skilled bard in all the land. He was able to calm man and beast

alike by playing his lyre. He was also known for being cocky and

arrogant, and in some variations of the tale his beloved’s death was

planned by the gods to warn him of his pride. Orpheus set out and

entered Hades by playing music so melancholy that Charon, filled

with pity, agreed to ferry him across. Orpheus then fought off and

charmed the spirits of the dead, and made his way to the palace of

Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the underworld. He

again charmed his antagonists, and was allowed to have his

beloved back if he could make his way back above the earth

without glancing back at her. While making the journey back,

Orpheus called her name to make sure she was following him.

She didn’t hear him, and Orpheus glanced back at her. The girl

was immediately drawn back to Hades and lost forever.

Despite its unhappy ending, the myth of Orpheus bears

much resemblance to Luke’s quest. Immediately upon entering the

Death Star, Luke and his friends hid themselves until they could

ambush several stormtroopers and disguise themselves in their

uniforms. At this point Ben left the group to disable the tractor

beam keeping their ship imprisoned. This is symbolic of the

supernatural force which aids the Hero to a certain point, then

leaves to pursue other goals. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,”

Gandalf was only present for certain obstacles, leaving when he

deemed it necessary. His absences allowed Bilbo, the hero of the

story, to prove his worth. Perhaps the hardest leg of Bilbo and his

friend’s journey, the trip through Mirkwood, was traversed without

the aid of Gandalf. The events which occurred in this forest, and

up until the very end of the story, were those in which Bilbo took

control and matured into a Hero. When Ben left, Luke too started

to prove his worth by coming up with a plan to rescue Princess

Leia, who was being held prisoner. His plan worked until Luke,

Han, and Chewbacca reached the prison cell where Leia was being

held. Their success due to Luke’s cunning corresponds to

Orpheus’s charming of the spirits which threatened him. They

then had to fight the guards in order to reach the princess. They

successfully defended against the guards long enough to reach the

princess and rescue her, finally escaping from immediate danger

by sliding down a garbage chute. The friends’s success due (in

part) to Luke’s combat ability corresponds to Orpheus’s success in

fighting off the spirits which didn’t succumb to his music.

After the obtaining of the primary goal, the Hero must flee

from the place of his adventure and face more obstacles along the

way. In this escape, termed the Flight by Campbell, the Hero

exhibits what he has learned and proves that he has earned his

prize. In A New Hope, the obstacles faced by Luke and his friends

after the rescue of the Princess were far greater than those faced

before. Again Luke takes control and starts to fulfill his role as

Hero. Immediately after escaping down the garbage chute, the

friends find themselves in a garbage compactor. Luke is seized

and dragged underwater by a snakelike creature. Han is helpless to

save him, and Luke would have drowned had it not been for the

introduction of the next obstacle. The creature withdraws when

the walls start to move in toward themselves, leaving Luke and

company to deal with a new threat. This series of events is a

classic example of the frying pan-fire analogy. The heroes escape

from the stormtroopers to be threatened with the sewer-creature,

which they survive only to be faced with the walls caving in. The

obstacle of the walls is another example of the Clashing Rocks of

the Symplegades in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts. In the

myth, the heroes escape by following a blind seer’s advice given in

a previous adventure. They let a dove fly through the Rocks ahead

of the ship. The dove’s tail feathers are crushed, but it safely

makes it through. The heroes start to row as the Rocks begin to

separate, and the ship just barely passes through. The Rocks then

withdraw and become forever rooted to the ocean floor. The dove

in this scene of A New Hope is Artoo- Detoo. As Han, Chewbacca

and Leia try to block the closing walls with a length of pipe, Luke

contacts See-Threepio through his comlink. See-Threepio

instructs Artoo- Detoo to interface with the computer and shut

down the garbage facilities, which he does just in the nick of time.

There is a brief but meaningful encounter just before the

band reaches their ship in which there is another example of

Luke’s growth as a hero. Luke and Leia become separated from

the others, and are faced with a wide ravine. There is no way

across, and stormtroopers are attacking them from behind as well

as the other side of the ravine. Luke, thinking quickly, throws a

grappling hook across and swings to the other side. This is Luke’s

first trial he has faced alone, and he successfully overcomes it.

The last obstacle during the Flight occurs as the

companions are leaving the Death Star. Ben has died, killed by

Darth Vader while drawing attention away from Luke and his

band, but Luke’s training with him has been completed. Ben’s

role was to instruct Luke and teach him how to use his cunning.

He exhibits his mastery of this in the crossing of the ravine and the

escape from the garbage pit. The only training Luke has remaining

is instruction in the physical, combat-oriented skills. In Celtic

mythology, there existed a mighty warrior named Cuchulainn.

Cuchulainn was the most powerful hero in the land, and could be

bested by no one in his Homeland. Cuchulainn traveled to Skatha,

a great warrior queen who dwelt in the faerie land, for training and

competition. Han takes Skatha’s place in A New Hope. He

doesn’t actually teach Luke; he is more of an example for Luke to

follow. Han is a brilliant pilot and fighter. His ship is the fastest

ship known to the Rebellion or the Empire as a result of his careful

modifications, although it is less-than-attractive to the eye

(Reference ANH, 10027–10107). Han uses many complicated and

dangerous tactics in ship-to-ship combat, and is headstrong and

fearless in battle. Luke witnesses his friend’s abilities and learns

by copying them. His skills are tested in the escape from the

Death Star. Four TIE Fighters, the Empire’s standard starfighter,

pursue the Millennium Falcon away from the Death Star. Han

leaves Chewbacca and Leia to pilot the ship while he and Luke go

to the weapons controls. It is significant that Han asks Luke to

help him. Earlier he reprimanded Luke’s overeagerness

(Reference ANH, 10129–10309) and now he welcomes his aid

(Reference ANH, 13956–14227). They successfully destroy their

enemies, and Luke shows skill equal to Han’s by destroying an

equal number of ships. Upon finishing training with Skatha,

Cuchulainn aids her in a netherworld battle with an enemy force.

In the battle he fights as well as Skatha, proving he has completed

his training.

The next part of the Hero’s adventure in Campbell’s Cycle

is the return from the threshold. This is the Hero’s exit from the

Land of Enchantment and return to the normal world. This is not a

lull or end of activity; rather, it is a heightening of danger and

resolve. The Hero has succeeded in winning his prize, but in most

myths the prize is necessary to accomplish some deed in the

Hero’s homeland. Perseus slew Medusa not on a whim but as a

request. His mother, Danae, was a beautiful woman whom the

king of the land, Polydectes, lusted after. Polydectes was evil and

greedy, and decided to force Danae to marry him. Perseus

defended his mother so strongly and heroically that Polydectes

decided to get rid of him. He pretended to marry another princess,

and invited Perseus to attend the wedding. Perseus was poor and

could afford no wedding present, and told Polydectes this when it

came time for the presentation of the gifts. Polydectes

condescended to him, knowing that Perseus’s pride would be

stung. Perseus told him that he would do anything the king wanted

as his gift, and Polydectes told him to kill Medusa and bring back

her head, not believing he could do it. Meanwhile, he intended to

force Danae to marry him. When Perseus accomplished the deed

and escaped from the remaining two Gorgons, his adventure was

not over. He still had to return and confront the situation at home.

Luke’s return from the threshold is his escape from the

Death Star to the Rebel base on Yavin IV. He has won a victory

for the Rebellion by rescuing Princess Leia and the information

aboard Artoo- Detoo, but the Empire knows where the Rebellion’s

base is. The Death Star is on its way to destroy the planet, and the

Hero must somehow stop it. Luke has now exited the realm of the

fantastic but must still finish his quest outside of it.

The last step of the cycle is the return with the Elixir and

the Resolution. Beowulf, after wounding Grendel, had secured

Hrothgar’s Mead Hall, but he still had to track Grendel down. In

his case, the Elixir, or the key item or piece of information needed

to complete the quest, was the knowledge of the location of

Grendel’s lair. Only by acting upon the Elixir was he able to kill

Grendel’s mother and end the threat forever. The Elixir in the

story of Perseus was Medusa’s head, which Perseus stuffed in the

magical wallet given to him by Hermes. When he returned to

Polydectes’s palace, he found that his mother had been made to

marry the evil king. Perseus stormed into Polydectes’s throne

room, where he and his nobles were celebrating. Polydectes was

stunned that Perseus had come back, and before he could act

Perseus held aloft Medusa’s head and turned everyone present

save himself into stone.

The Elixir in “A New Hope” was the information Princess

Leia had stored in Artoo- Detoo. Specifically, the information was

the technical readout of the Death Star. Once at Yavin, the heroes

set about searching the readout for a hidden weakness, and found

one. The pilots rushed to their starfighters and prepared to launch.

Luke was invited to join them, thus completing his transition. He

started out as an ordinary boy, answered the Call to Adventure, and

entered the Threshold. He passed the obstacles before him and

successfully overcame his Supreme Ordeal. He escaped safely

back into the ordinary realm, and now all that remained was the

use of the Elixir to finish his quest. Luke was the one who

destroyed the Death Star in the nick of time, thus saving the

Rebellion. The legend of Beowulf again proves useful. Beowulf

finds that Grendel’s lair is underwater, and he immediately dives

in to find him. This symbolizes the impossible situation the Hero

must act in. The Rebels’s situation in A New Hope is similar,

having small one-man starfighters to attack a battle station as big

as a moon. Beowulf is confronted with Grendel’s mother, an

opponent larger and meaner than Grendel himself. The immediate

worsening of odds is also a typical part of the final conflict of the

Hero. Luke and the other Rebel pilots not only have to destroy the

Death Star, but they must also fight off enemy starfighters,

including Darth Vader, one of the best pilots in the galaxy. The

heroes have a bit of luck, though; the Death Star has a small

exhaust port which leads directly to its center. A direct torpedo hit