The Hero's Adventure in City of Bones

After watching and taking notes on the speech about “The Hero’s Adventure,” I realized how closely it relates to some of the stories I have read it the past.  In the novel City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.  In it a girl is thrust into becoming a hero when her mother is kidnapped.  Her moral objective is to save her mother.  Later on as the world around her is changing into something she had never seen before (a world of magic), she begins to evolve by getting “marks” on her skin that represents different magical powers that she can possess.  The rest of the magical world had already had these, but now it is her time to get them.  However, through her journey she is faced with a single temptation that distracts her from finding her mother and forces her into falling in love; that temptation’s name is Jace.  She falls in love with him and the world she now lives in.  In other words, she goes through a transformation of consciousness.  He trains her and teaches her how to use her powers then she ends up being stronger than him since she learns of her special ability to draw the “marks” on people and give them temporary new powers.  Jace plays the part of not only the temptation, but also the mentor (though he does not look like an old man, but that’s beside the point).  Another part of this novel is the “departure, fulfillment, return” aspect.  By this I mean that the main character Clary leaves her house and enters this magical world so that she can find her mother, thus fulfilling her quest.  When she finds the mum that had been searched out for many years, there is an evil foe who attempts to keep Clary and Jace from getting the mother back to her home.  They must defeat this foe much like other heroes must defeat the whale or the dragon; she must stay and fight.  This also represents a sacrifice in the fact that she will risk her life in order to save her most beloved family member.  Soon the foe disappears and Clary is left to bring her mother back to their home.  Though there are many complications like the fact that her mother was brainwashed, she still returns home in the end like the same person she used to be, however, now Clary knows the secret powers that her mother has been hiding from her.  The story ended in fulfillment and a transformation.  This journey holds many of the key traits of a hero’s tale.  There are many aspects of this novel that lead me to believe that what we heard in class today is, in fact, true: all hero stories are the same.  This also furthers my belief in what I learnt at the very beginning of the year: all stories are the same; no matter how different they may seem, they are always following the same basic plot structure.  This study of heroes is really interesting in the sense that any hero story can be explained the same way I just explained City of Bones.

Is the Ending Happy (Hint: Yes)

A major conflict of interest in our class lately has been a topic relating to “Doll’s House.”  After hearing what my classmates had to say about this, I decided to ask this question to myself: does the play have a happy ending?  The truth is, I can see why someone could argue either way but I do believe that it is a happy end to an extent.  Yes, the kids are now left with no mother and Torvald is left without a wife, but in the context of the play I believe this is better than the alternative version where Nora stays.

Many people are arguing that the children will now be incomplete without their mother, but if you think about what would happen if she stayed, the same argument could be said.  Nora is said to have been “poisoning” her children through her influence.  She still does not trust herself to not poison these kids so she would most likely avoid them anyway in order to keep them as pure as possible.

Another hot topic of this discussion is that Torvald is now left without a wife, too.  This argument should not even be said since they are completely ridiculous.  Not once did I notice Torvald treating Nora as a wife in the slightest way possible.  She was suppressed and used as a simple play-thing or a doll; this brings on the other point that dolls are replaceable.  Yes, Torvald will be upset for a little while, but soon enough Nora will be replaced with another woman who does not mind being suppressed and almost pushed around.  Torvald had lost his wife long before Nora had left and he knew this; he suggested a “brother and sister relationship” for the two of the just to keep her in the house.  His wife was already gone in spirit, all that was left was for her to physically leave.

I believe this play is happy for one main point: Nora needs to find herself.  She could not have taught the children and been a good wife to her husband without finding herself first.  She acted like a child because of this since she did not yet know who she was and where she fit in life.  If she does not know her own identity, then how can she be expected to help her children find who they are?  It only makes sense for Nora to face reality head-on and dive into the world of the unknown in order to come to the surface as a found woman who knows, understands and trusts her place in society.  She is not leaving in order to hurt the family she has developed for eight years, she is leaving in order to save the family from hurting any more than they already are.  Nora believes she is doing the right thing, no matter what her society or our society believes.  This play is about finding individuality through society and doing this by defying social norms.

Nora's Fight For Independence

Though I did enjoy reading Doll’s House in class throughout the past few weeks, I am still angered by this play.  Yes, I understand that this was in a completely different time period when ankles were scandalous and equality was a joke, but as a girl I feel as though I have a reason to be angered by the play.  Don’t get me wrong though, I am not mad at the author; he seemed to push “social norms” and shocked the crowds with his completely crazy idea that women could live their lives without men controlling them.  This play seemed to be more of a feminist play in this sense rather than a play about gaining independence.

Though the argument could be put forth that a woman just happened to be the person gaining independence out of all of the characters, we have learnt in class that this cannot by true.  If there is anything we have learnt while reading this play, it is that Henrik Ibsen never uses an object (or person in this sense) by chance; they all have a special meaning.  After thinking about the importance of every object, I decided to think about what the play would be like if it were a man in Nora’s shoes.  Once you get passed the awkward conversations between Torvald and the new male-form of Nora, it is a simple, boring play.  It would merely describe a man who was in debt and followed the same path that Krogstad did; the end.  However, the fact that it was a woman who forged a signature and withheld some debt from her husband is the reason why this play was an outrage.  After continuously being called pet names such as a “song bird” and a “sky lark” and after following every order from Torvald for eight years, Nora had reached her breaking point.  She defiantly eats macaroons when Torvald is not looking, raises money to move her and Torvald out of the country, gets herself into debt, and leaves her husband.  This defiance shows her true strength and proves that a woman can stand up for her rights and beliefs and put herself before anyone even though Torvald states, “first and foremost, you are a wife and a mother” (82).

Women were always tasked to listen to their husband and obey the commands they were given during this time period, however, when Torvald is trying to have sex with Nora after the party, she refuses.  This shows a true strength that all women can possess that even though she had been acting happy and “cutesy” around him before, if she does not want to do something she will stand her ground.

This play could have possibly made such a scene during the time period due to the men rather than the women.  If women could see just one woman stand up and defy her husband then leave as a happy woman, then there could have been a giant outcry and possibly a rebellion of women who believe in equality.  The problem is the fact that the men were scared that women could have actually attained equality if they all banned together.