Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:67:Godfrey can imagine a hero-father(Alan Sinder)

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This is a page about dads and heros the mythic journey of the hero-father

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Daniel Waterhouse is worried how his son Godfrey will remember him.

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TBA

Wikipedia: Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell (March 26, 1904 - October 31, 1987) is best known for his work in the fields of mythology and comparative religion.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

The Hero With a Thousand Faces is a book ( ISBN 0691017840 ) by mythologist Joseph Campbell. Originally published in 1949, it has sold nearly one million copies in various editions. It traces the stages of a hero archetype's journey and transformation through many traditional mythologies of the world. In the process, it uses many of the theories of Carl Jung, such as the concept of the collective unconscious.
Sir Galahad, a prototypical hero
And Son of Sir Lancelot

Archetype

An archetype is an original model on which something is patterned or based. The term is often used in literature, architecture and the arts to refer to something that goes back to the fundamentals of the art. William Shakespeare's plays, for example, are held up as containing many archetypal roles because he was the first that we know of to write them.

Jungian Archetypes

The archetype is also a concept of psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. In this context, archetypes are innate prototypes for ideas, which may subsequently become involved in the interpretation of observed phenonena. A group of memories and interpretations closely associated with an archetype is called a complex, and may be named for its central archetype (e.g. "mother complex"). Jung often seemed to view the archetypes as sort of psychological organs, directly analogous to our physical, bodily organs: both being morphological givens for the species; both arising at least partially through evolutionary processes. There are four famous forms of archetypes numbered by Jung:

The Self
The Shadow
The Anima
The Animus

The symbols of the unconscious abound in Jungian psychology:

The Syzygy (Divine Couple)
The Child
The Superman (the Omnipotent)
The Hero (examples: Heracles, Tarzan)
The Great Mother (manifested either as the Good Mother or the Terrible Mother)
The Wise Old Man
The Trickster or Ape (examples: Hermes, Coyote, Brer Rabbit, Bugs Bunny)

"Archetype" is sometimes broadly and misleadingly used as a substitute for such other words as prototype, stereotype, and epitome. This illustrates the Jungian concept of a complex. Since certain groups of word meanings are closely connected to each other in the mind, to the point of being nearly inseparable, some of those meanings may migrate from the most apt words to other related words.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been cited as an inspiration by many students, filmmakers (most notably George Lucas), novelists, and comic book creators.
Lord Frederick Leighton's
Daedalus and Icarus

Childhood Fascination

Campbell, as a child, became fascinated with Native American culture when his father took him to see the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He soon became versed in numerous aspects of Native American society, primarily in mythology. This led Campbell to a lifelong passion with myth, and its similar, cohesive threads among all human cultures.

Campbell was a student of Carl Jung, just as Jung was before a student of Sigmund Freud. Campbell's work in mythology bridged the seemingly disparate stances of Jung and Freud, and their pivotal debate over the collective unconscious which became an embodiment of the conflicts between Western and Eastern worlds of belief.

Campbell was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934 until 1972.

Campbell collaborated with Bill Moyers on the PBS series The Power of Myth, which was first broadcast in 1988, the year after Campbell's death in Honolulu. They also jointly authored the book The Power of Myth ISBN 0385247745 is associated with the series.

Daedalus (mythology)

Daedalus is the only mythical hero father engineer I can recall. In Greek mythology, the labyrinth in which the Minotaur was kept and from which Theseus escaped by means of the clue of Ariadne was built by Daedalus (also Daedalos), a most skilful artificer (he was even said to have invented images). It was an edifice with numberless winding passages and turnings opening into one another, and seeming to have neither beginning nor end. Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, but afterwards lost the favor of the king, and was shut up in a tower.

Minos had to have the labyrinth to imprison his wife's son with a white bull, the Minotaur. Daedalus had built Minos' wife, Pasiphae, a wooden cow so she could mate with the bull. Poseidon had cursed her with bestiality.

Icarus (mythology)

Icarus was imprisoned, with his father, in a tower on Crete, by the king, Minos. Daedalus contrived to make his escape from his prison, but could not leave the island by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all the vessels, and permitted none to sail without being carefully searched. "Minos may control the land and sea," said Daedalus, "but not the regions of the air. I will try that way." So he set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He wrought feathers together beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, by his play impeding his father in his labors.

When at last the work was done, the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air. He next equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly, as a bird tempts her young ones from the lofty nest into the air. When all was prepared for flight, he said, "Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe." While he gave him these instructions and fitted the wings to his shoulders, the face of the father was wet with tears, and his hands trembled. He kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time. Then rising on his wings he flew off, encouraging him to follow, and looked back from his own flight to see how his son managed his wings. As they flew the ploughman stopped his work to gaze, and the shepherd learned on his staff and watched them, astonished at the sight, and thinking they were gods who could thus cleave the air.

Daedalus could not leave the island by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all the vessels, and permitted none to sail without being carefully searched. Since Minos controlled the land and sea routes, Daedalus set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He wrought feathers together beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. When at last the work was done, the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air. He next equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax, nor too low because the dampness of the sea would clog the wings. Then the father and son flew away.
Daedalus and the Fall of Icarus

They had passed Samos, Delos and Lebynthos when the boy began to soar upward as if to reach heaven. The blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together, and they came off. Icarus fell into the sea. His father cried and bitterly lamenting his own arts, he buried the body and called the land Icaria in memory of his child. Daedalus arrived safe in Sicily in the care of King Cocalus, where he built a temple to Apollo, and hung up his wings, an offering to the god.

Minos hunts Daedalus

Minos, meanwhile, searched for Daedalus by travelling from city to city asking a riddle. He presented a spiral seashell and asked for it to be strung all the way through. When he reached Camicus, King Cocalus, knowing Daedalus would be able to solve the riddle, fetched the old man. He tied the string to an ant, which walked through the seashell, stringing it all the way through. Minos then knew Daedalus was in the court of King Cocalus and demanded he be handed over. Cocalus managed to convince him to take a bath first. Cocalus' daughters then killed Minos.

Daedalus was so proud of his achievements that he could not bear the idea of a rival. His sister had placed her son Perdix under his charge to be taught the mechanical arts. He was an apt scholar and gave striking evidences of ingenuity. Walking on the seashore he picked up the spine of a fish. Imitating it, he took a piece of iron and notched it on the edge, and thus invented the saw. He put two pieces of iron together, connecting them at one end with a rivet, and sharpening the other ends, and made a pair of compasses. Daedalus was so envious of his nephew's performances that he took an opportunity, when they were together one day on the top of a high tower, to push him off. But Athena, who favors ingenuity, saw him falling, and arrested his fate by changing him into a bird called after his name, the partridge. This bird does not build his nest in the trees, nor take lofty flights, but nestles in the hedges, and mindful of his fall, avoids high places. For this crime, Daedalus was tried and banished.

Daedalus other son was Iapyx. Iapyx was Aeneas ' healer during the Trojan War. He escaped to Italy after the war and founded Apulia.

Sources

Apollodorus. Bibliotheke. III.i.4, III.xv.8
Apollodorus. Epitome. I.8-15
Ovid. Metamorphoses. VIII.180-262
Ovid. Ars Amatoria. II Virgil XX, 391, 402

Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:67:Godfrey can imagine a hero-father (Alan Sinder)