The Movie The Nightmare Before Christmas - 1701 Words

Heroes have fascinated the masses for years; this is displayed in comic books, movies, and myths that trail back farther than five thousand Before Common Era. The question that goes through all minds at some point, however, is what makes a hero? Joseph Campbell wrote his theory of The Hero’s Journey in which he describes the path the hero will tread and the trials and tribulations ahead of them. That is not to say that there are not multiple ways to go about a hero tale, there are various kinds of heroes, which all change the story. There are tragic heroes, classic heroes, epic heroes, and more. In the film The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington fits Campbell’s archetype of the Hero’s Journey tragically, as he enters the†¦show more content†¦His fatal flaw was his ambition. He reached for unattainable goals even when all the odds were against him, and even when he was given warnings of dire trouble he carried on. Within his text, Campbell writes about the hero crossing the first threshold and entering a Special World. Taking this action signifies the beginning of the journey and the hero’s commitment to it. When related to Jack, the Special World he crosses over to is Christmas Town, where he begins his journey toward making people happy rather than scaring them. After being celebrated by the town for the best Halloween yet, Jack sneaks off by himself toward the outskirts of the town into a twisted hill above a pumpkin patch and graveyard, it is there he sits and ponders what he is feeling, and thus he begins singing Jack’s Lament. Within the song he sings about how others view him as terrifying and displays a few the scare tactics he has, but the chorus of the song is what reveals the crux of his dilemma, oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones, an emptiness began to grow, there’s something out there, far from my home, a longing that I’ve never known . Jack is un happy with the life he is leading and as a result has become massively depressed. Zero, his ghost dog, even tries to cheer him up to no avail. This leads to Jack wandering the forest until dawn when he stumbles upon a place he has never been to before. As a result, he comes