What Does Stories Like Conduct In Question Have To Do With Josep

What Does Stories Like Conduct In Question Have To Do With Joseph Campbell And The Hero With A Thousand Faces?

WHY WE LOVE STORIES

Tell me a story! Just one more story!

Okay, here’s one for you about a forty-six year old lawyer.

Harry’s stuck in the backroom of a creaky, old law firm and under his senior partner’s thumb. Life is going nowhere and his chances of making real money are fading fast. His wife plans to leave him because, she claims, they are ‘in different worlds.’ Wishing his life were different, he has no idea how to change it.

Next day his senior partner comes into to his office and drops dead. Soon a brand new client arrives to sucker him into a money-laundering scheme. Although highly principled, he has new money troubles and consequently turns a blind eye to the scam. (Be careful what you wish for.)

When he finds his elderly client dead, just after she has asked to change her will, (suspicious circumstances for sure!) he is forced to hunt down a serial killer, dubbed the Florist. To do so, he must go down into the psyche of this serial killer (and, more importantly, into his own) to understand this psychotic killer with an artistic flair. And he must stop him. Just as his wife is about to pack her bag, a beautiful woman, Natasha, comes to Harry’s aid.

At the end, Harry has discovered undreamed of powers within himself and this new woman, who actually loves him. And if that’s not enough, he’s laid waste to the Florist plus a corrupt firm of lawyers at the heart of the money-laundering scam.

What story is this?

It’s the story of Harry Jenkins in Conduct in Question, the first in the Osgoode Trilogy, which I wrote.

The hero, Harry Jenkins, also appears in Final Paradox and a Trial of One, the second and third novels in the trilogy.

Just click www.maryemartin.com to learn more about Harry and see a slide show of settings in Conduct in Question.

After almost thirty years of law practice, why didn’t I write essays, setting out the machinations of money-launderers, replete with diagrams, statistics and charts? (Strange as it may sound, lawyers here can even take courses on money laundering.) I could have written about estate law and quoted sections of the Wills and Estates Act. But I bet you’d never read it.

Why not? Because you’d much rather hear a story, which brings all these problems to life, with exciting conflicts between good and evil and all the ‘in between’ shades of gray. Only with real characters acting upon one another do these problems jump off the page and get interesting. That’s why we tell stories.

In high school, many of us studied Greek Mythology -those fabulous stories about gods, goddesses and heroes. Tales of high adventure! But no one ever explained who made these stories and why. Where did they come from?

The great mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero with a Thousand Faces that,

Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestations…The symbols of mythology are not manufactured: they cannot be ordered, invented or permanently suppressed. They are spontaneous productions of the psyche and each bears within it, undamaged, the germ power of its source. (Pg 3&4)

Are myths, dreams and stories living ‘things’ springing up from within? So it seems, according to Campbell. For me, stories are the outpourings of our psyches from mysterious sources. Like dreams and myths, they are individually and collectively an expression of our deepest sense of what it means to be human.

But isn’t it interesting! Reading Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, we learn that story formats and plot lines are also embedded in us. In so many myths, the hero is lifted out of his everyday life and called or forced to do something dangerous. Confronting tremendous obstacles (of a huge variety limited only by our imaginations), he must find help along the way and call upon powers within himself to reach his goal. Once he has reached it, he must return to his world with his prize. Isn’t that the basic plot of innumerable Hollywood action flicks?

Back to our lawyer. A lawyer as a hero? (I’m not joking!)

Events drive Harry from the dull safety of his usual life. Next, he is battling strange forces never confronted before. He discovers within previously unknown powers and abilities. Then he must return to his ‘normal’ life with the prize, a good woman and a new understanding of himself. And all the bad guys are gone! Sounds like a hero’s journey to me.

Did I purposely set out to write a hero’s journey? Hardly! Only after literally innumerable rewrites, did I begin to recognize that indeed, this was a tale of the hero’s journey. My point is that the hero’s journey and other variations are our innate grammar, language and structure for myths, dreams and stories. It is through them that we express our human ways of being.

All the big questions, which are fundamentally meaningful to us, are asked in stories. In a way, each story is about birth, growth, death and redemption. And so, it is through story telling that we satisfy our very human need to understand one another, our world and ourselves. At least that’s the way I see it. How about you?

BONUS : What Does This Inexplicable Tutor Want?

Many students around the world face in their opinion with insurmountable challenges- to design and successfully complete their writing assignments. Whatever task you face whatever type of paper you are assigned with and whatever program you are enrolled at, one should always remember that your imagination, creativity and original, unique vision are indispensable elements of well-written term paper.

Let us take for example a psychology term paper. So many students around the nation do not know how to start writing this kind of paper. One can examine this process. First, you should make acquaintance with some famous psychologists in order to understand how their ideas have shaped modern psychology.

Second, investigate the problem from psychological point of view. Try to explain why people, behave this way and not another, what ideas, thoughts and events guided them. Third, try to find out how other psychologist interpreted similar acts or behavior of individuals. But be very cautious in citing and certainly do not try to put out ideas of other persons as your own. Remember that if you violate this well-known rule, you commit plagiarism – a very serious crime. You may learn more about psychology term paper here.

You might use similar methods in the writing of philosophical papers. However, remember that in this type of paper- the most important point is to show your ability to criticize and analyze, rather than paraphrase or write some platitudes. The tutor would like to teach you how to analyze critically, argumentatively and impartially. One should always produce enough evidence for each contention made in an essay. Remember that your essay will be much weaker if you just provide your reader with the list of simple and vague assertions, without backing them up. Another vital element of this type of an essay is your clear statement of your point of view on the subject researched. The reader should understand where you stand. One can learn more about it here - philosophical term paper.

Certainly there are just two types of the term papers that you may be asked to complete. There are different methods and ways that should be applied to research other subjects. Despite many differences all term papers and custom essays have a lot of common features as well. Before you start designing any paper (whether it is a one page essay or one hundred pages dissertation) you should follow several well-known, yet at the same time frequently forgotten steps: 1) Critically evaluate the subject, 2).One should gather relevant material on the topic, 3) Outline and make preliminary draft of your paper, 4) Design ad complete a preliminary draft 5) Edit the draft.

Yes, certainly it is a time and energy consuming process, but do not forget that it will pay off later on. The most important point is to learn how to organize, analyze, express your opinion in writing and produce well-argumentative research Learn more about it here - Custom Essay Writing Service