The Tragic Lives Of Michael Corleone And John The Savage Though The E

The Tragic Lives Of Michael Corleone And John The Savage: Though The Eyes Of Joseph Campbell Brendan Tyo 10/8/01 People in literature, theater, and real life can all be viewed as tragic heroes. In order to fully understand this effect, one must observe what a man named Joseph Campbell calls the hero circle. This circle consists of specific significant stops in the hero's journey. John the Savage of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Michael Corleone of The Godfather, both fit into Mr. Campbell's model of a heroic journey. John and Michael Corleone share similar heroic lives at their special births, small battles, and boon stages of their journeys. Both John and Corleone are born with a certain kind of power as a result of their detachment from the world that they can never fully know. John has a certain unique kind of power as son of the Director of the very society that alienates him. John shows his surprise when he discovers the truth about his father, He came in at once . . . fell on his knees in front of the Director, and said in a clear voice: 'My father' (Huxley 151). The combination of the Director as his father and his birth as a member of the savage community spark John's detachment from the London society. Corleone's desire to break away from the family's crime business is always overcome by his birth into it. On J. Geoff Malta's The Godfather internet fan page, Corleone is quoted as saying, Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in (Malta 3). This illustrates the merciless undertow of the family's organized crime business. Corleone's birth into the family continues to plague him until the very end of his j ourney. Both John and Corleone's births served as starting points for their tragic stories. While John's lack of choice of destiny detaches him from the London society, Corleone's lack of desire and passion for his occupation alienates him from the society of the family business. Though Corleone is discontent with the concrete outcomes of his birth, John is also an outsider as a result of his own. While John and Corleone both had similar births, they also faced comparable small battles in their journeys. John and Corleone both face the death of family members as tests or small battles in their journeys. John deals with the painful loss of his mother when Linda passes away. Huxley illustrates John's devastation in Chapter 14, 'Quick, quick!' He caught her by the sleeve, dragged her after him. 'Quick! Something's happened. I've killed her.' . . . The Savage stood for a moment in frozen silence, then fell on his knees beside the bed and, covering his face with his hands, sobbed uncontrollably (Huxley 206). John's actions show how traumatic Linda's death is to him, challenging him to continue his life as a tragic hero. Corleone faces the near death of his loving father after an assassination attempt. A scene analysis of The Godfather describes Corleone's tragedy and what followed, When his father is shot though, Michael takes revenge on the people who did it and becomes part of the Mafia lifestyle. When his older brother is murdered, Michael ascends to become the boss of the family, and proves to be more ruthless than his father and brother combined (Glass 1). Corleone's experiences challenge him to make a difficult choice between reason and revenge. Both John and Corleone's encounters with death serve as catalysts in becoming tragic heroes. The heroes find death testing their love and loyalty to their families. Also, each of them go through small, but difficult battles to recover from their losses including emotional breakdown for John and uncontrollable aggression for Corleone. Though John and Corleone deal with like obstacles, they also both meet similar ends to their heroic lives. In the end of each of John and Corleone's journeys, death functions as their boons. John's death is the only way he can get away from the society that plagued him. Huxley describes John's end: That evening the swarm of helicopters that came buzzing across the Hog's Back . . . 'Savage!' called the first arrivals, as they alighted from their machine. 'Mr. Savage!' (Huxley 259).

Free Essays on Images Of America In Rock ‘n’ Roll

, country music was the music for white working class families. Country music never crossed racial lines, though, and never gained acceptance in black culture. The music of the black working class was blues, which was more about guilt and da... Free Essays on Images Of America In Rock ‘n’ Roll Free Essays on Images Of America In Rock ‘n’ Roll Blood On the Tracks: The Pain and Hope of America’s Workers â€Å"America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.† -Allan Ginsberg, â€Å"America† (1956) Allan Ginsberg was not part of the baby boomer generation that made rock-n-roll famous. He was born in New Jersey in 1926, so his generation was more closely aligned to what Tom Brokaw would later refer to as â€Å"the greatest generation.† (allanginsberg.com) He lived through the great depression and the Second World War. As Ginsberg grew older, he became dismayed by what he saw in America, it had become a place of industrialization and steel towns, a symbol of the pains of â€Å"progress,† filled with souls who had given their lives to the American dream only to discover that they could never have it. (Scheurer) At about the same time as Ginsberg wrote the famous poem â€Å"America,† rock-n-roll music was becoming the music of the lost myths of America. Rock-n-roll was not an original creation; it drew heavily on what came before it. Mostly, though, rock music represented a merger between white country and black blues. In the book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, Greil Marcus discusses country music prior to the birth of rock. Country music was music that entire communities listened to, linking each member to the group. Marcus writes: The songs of country music, and most deeply, its even, narrow sound, had to subject the children to the heartbreak of their parents: the father who couldn’t feed his family, the wife who lost her husband to a honky-tonk angel or a bottle, the family that lost everything to a suicide or a farm spinning off into one more bad year. (Marcus, 133) In other words, country music was the music for white working class families. Country music never crossed racial lines, though, and never gained acceptance in black culture. The music of the black working class was blues, which was more about guilt and da...