Essay On Heros Journey And Shakespeare In Love

The objective of the essay is to undergo the analysis of the movie “Shakespeare in Love” on the basis of the tenet of the Hero’s Journey as described by Joseph Campbell in his book “Hero with a Thousand Faces”. Campbell described that every story can be broken down into three acts: Departure, Initiation and the Return. It is through the passing of these three stages that the hero is made and his mission accomplished. Campbell further described 12 steps within the Acts, which has since been elaborated upon to as many as 16 stages. We shall now study the movie “Shakespeare in Love” on the basis of these stages and try to decipher the journey of the protagonist in the movie.
1. HOME CULTURE: The movie opens with our hero in his comfortable setting. He is facing a writer’s block and looking for inspiration, a muse to write his next play.
2. CALL TO ADVENTURE: Shakespeare intends to write “Romeo & Juliet” for Richard Burbage and his theatre “Curtains”, but changes his mind on seeing his proposed muse cheat on him.
3. REFUSAL TO CALL: Shakespeare after agreeing to write a comedy for Henslowe struggles as he does have a script or a story to begin with.
4. SUPERNATURAL AID: It comes from his competition Christopher Marlowe who gives him ideas to begin writing his play.
5. CROSSING THE FIRST THRESHOLD: William chases Lady Viola who comes in to the audition disguised as an actor to audition for the role of Romeo, as he believes her to be perfect for the role. It is here that William is convinced that the play he would be writing would be a success.
6. ROAD OF TRIALS: The Road of Trials in this movie occur a bit later, The death of Marlowe and later when the “Rose” is shut down and he has no stage to showcase his play. Also his struggles to get his love, Lady Viola who is about to marry Lord Wessex form an important component of the trails of William Shakespeare.
7. MEETING A SOUL MATE: William meets Master Thomas Kent and then Lady Viola at her mansion. The two become soul mates when he realizes that Master Kent and Lady Viola is the same person.
8. OVERCOMING TEMPTATION: William overcomes his weakness of hiding the truth to Lady Vila about his marriage, and that he loves Lady Viola more than anyone else.
9. VIEWING THE WHOLE PICTURE: William now understands that maybe it might not be possible for him and Viola to unite.
10. THE ULTIMATE GOAL: Will’s ultimate goal is to stage a successful goal at the new venue “Curtains”.
11. REFUSING TO RETURN: Will still wishes that maybe somehow Viola could be his and they could live happily together.
12. THE CHASE: The chase is the staging of the play to bring to public view the greatest love story he had ever written.
13. THE RESCUE: The rescue comes from Lady Viola who plays the role of Juliet after the actor who was supposed to play it gets cold feet.
14. CROSSING THE RETURN THRESHOLD: Will tries to say his final goodbye to Viola and still wishes inside for her not to leave him for America. He thinks that he would give up on writing plays now that his love is lost. However with Viola’s support, he decides to do what he does best, as a tribute to their love.
15. MASTER OF THE TWO WORLDS: Will now overcomes his loss of love, draws inspiration and sets up for writing many future plays. He now is comfortable with his past and his future.
16. FREEDOM: Thus at the end, the movie ends with Will writing a new play, “Twelfth Night” drawing from inspiration from his love and dedicates all his future plays to Viola.