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How Race Shapes the Hero's Journey

Thesis:

Percy Adams’ study of the hero’s journey emphasizes on the different obstacles that each hero must face to achieve their final quest of becoming a hero. His study was mainly focused on the dominant white character’s journey to become the hero of the story and how the different obstacles along the way affected that dominant character. This paper expands on Adams’ analysis of the minority hero's journey by looking at the way the bildungsroman Holes and The Watsons Go To Birmingham allow the minority hero to internalize external obstacles in the form of guilt; thus limiting their internal ascent in the social pyramid.

Novels:

What is the Hero's Journey?

Holes Quick Overview: 

Stanley Yelnats, a boy who has bad luck due to a curse placed on his great- great-grandfather, is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention camp, for a crime he did not commit. Stanley and the other boys at the camp are forced to dig large holes in the dirt every day. Zero and Stanley become really close friends and eventually Zero runs away. Once Zero runs away, Stanley goes after him until he locates him and breaks the family curse. Stanley and Zero put an end to Camp Green Lake and they discover treasure. 

Stanley: 

Stanley (white dominant hero) deals with his internalized guilt  by blaming life's problems on the family curse. Stanley began teaching Zero how to read at camp, and with this Stanley eventually stopped being concerned about the crime that he was falsely convicted of. Stanley's brotherly love for Zero eventually raised Stanley up on the social pyramid. Once Stanley went looking for Zero and finds him once he ran away, Stanley claimed the dominant hero title. This hero title and the discovery of his family's treasure eventually will raise Stanley up to the highest level on the social pyramid. Stanley went from a camp prisoner to his own person outside in the real world with only a few good acts. His increase up the social pyramid shows how the white character seemed to always come out on top during this time period. 

Zero:

Zero (black minority hero) deals with his internalized guilt by completely giving up on himself, inside and outside of Camp Green Lake---mainly for his actions towards Stanley. The camp guidance counselor claims Zero to be a nobody that will always be a nobody. Zero discovers that he is much more than a nobody, he is his own hero, one that he knows he can count on. He figured this out because of his close relationship with Stanley who reminds him that there is an intelligent person inside of Zero's head, just as long as Zero has the will-power to discover him. Zero helps Stanley bring down the camp and he even helps him with the discovery of the treasure, but this still wasn't enough to make Zero a dominant hero. Zero gathered the title of black minority hero and that is what he decided to keep and cherish. (No advancement on the social pyramid)

The Watsons Go to Birmingham Quick Overview: 

In 1963, a couple and their three children take a road trip to Alabama to see some of their family, mainly their grandmother. This is because of their trouble making son, Byron. The family gets to experience a large church bombing where history unfolds during the civil-rights movement. This disaster affects the family completely and changes the way that both of the brothers act afterwards pertaining to one another and those around them. 

Kenny & Byron: 

Both characters are defined as (black minority heroes). Kenny, the narrator, deals with his unearned guilt, which is caused by the possibility that he could have been one of the reasons that Joey could have possibly died in the church explosion. Kenny began to have a type of post traumatic stress until Byron was eventually able to persuade him that none of it was his fault. Byron's internal guilt that he began to feel more of was correlated to the church explosion. The church explosion somehow wiped away the hate in Byron's heart and this was of major importance for Byron's maturation. Both boys were a hero for one another.  (Internalized Heroism) (No advancement on the social pyramid)

Conclusion:

The dramatic changes in the characters during their maturation journeys are extremely significant to the outcome of each novel. The guilt that each character dealt with differently led them to change certain aspects of themselves, even their outlooks on their individual situations. Each boy changed in their own way, but each change in every boy was for the best of their own recreated character that they constructed. Every boy had something special about them that differentiated them from the other characters. A hero arised in each novel and rescued the counterpart that completed them. The most difficult part for the boys was finding the courage to set themselves apart from those around them. The internalized guilt each character developed placed a halt on their hero’s journey. Once they were able to capitalize on that guilt and complete their own journey, their level on the social pyramid had seemed to already have been chosen. Stanley, a dominant hero, was able to rise to the top of the social pyramid and be known for his actions outside of the world that he had already known. Zero, a minority hero, was unable to rise any farther on the social pyramid than he already had.  Byron and Kenny, both minority heroes, were both faced by the same outcome as Zero, they were also unable to rise on the social pyramid. During these time periods, only white heroes were allowed to be victorious by rising on the social pyramid and increase their social statues. Race kept the minority heroes from ascending on the social pyramid and that continued for generations to come.