This first reading from Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's Journey" features a structure for how film and storytelling today of the classic hero follows a basic outline.  Vogler's outline consists of three basic acts which each are made of smaller and more specific stages which the main character must also move through.  The three acts break the story off into introduction, climax, and conclusion.  The smaller and more detailed sections of each act being detailed out themselves.  With the hero's journey well defined, it is quite simple to relate how many different characters in literature are easily related to what Vogler is speaking about.

By setting out an outline for all hero's in general, Vogler does however restrict the definition of a literary or fictional hero to a great extent though.  By classifying and stating that all great heroes are faces with all three acts and further all of their sections, many of the people who are considered in today's society to be heroes are taken out of the discussion. People such as firemen and other life-risking professions would be very difficult to cast in such a way to portray them as a hero using this criteria.  In that position where an individual is trained to overcome the obstacle in front of them, would Vogler classify them as a hero? Because of how specific Vogler gets with his definition, it would be very difficult in many other mediums to portray the classic American as a hero in their natural environment.

Vogler's piece does however connect with outside sources including popular books and films in modern popular culture.  His idea of the hero being forced out of their normal element in order to overcome a dilemma can be found in many different stories popular today.  Each individual section of his three main themes are often found in movies and books, with all of them together occurring far less commonly.   Because of this, it is questionable as to why Vogler classifies that all of these themes can found in every modern piece instead of just classifying that his idea of an outline is very basic and open to interpretation.

Questions:

1)  Why does Vogler choose to declare his idea of the Hero's Journey to be so precise as a system, as in, while allowing variation, he proclaims that his idea , in some way is ever present in literature and cinema?

2)  When referring to Vogler's step 12, Returning with the elixir, does he consider it to more common that the elixir would be a literal object or a figurative lesson?

3)  Can Vogler's Hero's Journey be incorporated into different themes of literature including making a tragic love story into a man or woman's journey?