A Study On Animated Fantasy Feature Films From The Perspective Of Monomyth

Jung exclaimed:no matter from the perspective of ontogenesis or speciogenesis, evidences suggest that only returning to the deepest unconscious can we achieve a twice born (Noll,1994). But in this demythologized modern era, civilized man like Oedipus is increasingly more, but Tiresias’s ability of regressing into the unconscious to experience the original significance of the external world is increasingly farther away. While ancient traditions, like the old myths, allegories, legends, folk stories, etc. rooted in the practice of human existence for millions of years not only describe the stories of past, but also mirror the psychological process of human’s unconsciousness, which would effectively redound to alleviate modern psychological crises.Animated fantasy feature film with adolescents as the main protagonists, is a highly sought-after film genre of audio-visual art across countries, nations and ages. Resting with fantastic supernatural elements as well as the novel narrative pattern of hero’s quest in the film, on one hand, it satisfies the hero worship of young people, and echoes the hero complex of adults; on the other hand, it enables adolescents to have clear answers to "Who am I? Who can I be?" in the adolescent stage of Identity vs. role confusion. Animated fantasy feature film is one of the presentations of mythological works in modern cultural creative industry, which absorbs and reconstructs the essences from the old myths, allegories, legends, folk stories. Thus the metaphors used to convey the eternal truths have gained reconstruction in animated fantasy feature film. In this way, new mythical stories, new mythical figures are born in this modern era with metamorphoses of the gods just as the ancient Greeks described.Based on Jung’s archetypal psychology theory, American comparative mythology scholar Joseph Campbell put forth the theory of Monomyth in his mythology seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), which implies the "hero’s journey" is the ultimate narrative archetype with university. This archetype reveals that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure:Departure â†' Initiation â†' Return. As it is told in Vedas:"Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names" (Campbell,2004).Based on Campbell’s theory of Monomyth along with the enlightenment of theories about Psychology of Adolescent Development, this paper studies the narrative pattern and the psychological journey of adolescents in animated fantasy feature films. And there are six animated fantasy feature films released in different times and from different cultures collected as the objects of the study. They are Little Door Gods(2016), Song of the Sea (2014), The Book of Life (2014), Le Jour des Corneilles (2012), Coraline (2009), Princess Mononoke (1997). Results show that:1) The psychological development of hero in the stories and the narrative structure of hero’s journey in the collected animated fantasy feature films have testified the narrative archetype Monomyth could transcend times and regions, which in turn attests the core concept of Monomyth that the heroic stories in the world share a common structure; 2) Campbell’s theory of Monomyth fills the gap between the periods in hero’s growth from birth to puberty (which mainly at 16 years old) in Mythological-Archetypal theories. The adventure of hero between these two periods is exactly the narrative core of animated fantasy feature films. And the trials in the adventure leads to a twice born for the "Orphan" hero. In the fight against evil forces from archetypal figures of Demon and the Great Mother, the ultimate boons the hero achieved is identity development in the process of independence from parents; 3) Hero’s journey is the journey of adolescent’s psychological development, which is also an inevitable stage in human development. The trials in hero’s adventure in animated fantasy feature films are a lenient reflection of the dilemmas adolescents and parents have encountered, such as, parent-adolescent conflict, parental rearing patterns, adolescents’ anti-social behaviors, the rethinking about the coexistence between human and environment etc. However, crisis in adolescence is a turning point rather a threat to disaster, and conflict is the source of growth, power and responsibility (Erikson,1997); 4) When human nature is challenged and struck by modern science and technology, animated fantasy feature films bring the collective unconscious activities to the big screen through hero’s journey. And the heroes bred by modern society guide modern audiences to find the answers in growth through humanistic reflection in the films. Therefore, animated fantasy feature film has realized the ritualization function to modern society.This paper is composed of six chapters. The first Chapter includes the research background, significance, the purpose of the paper, the introduction of animated fantasy feature films together with the basic information of the six collected films.The second Chapter reviews the previous works on Monomyth and animated feature films both at home and abroad. And the reason why this paper chooses to study this kind of film genre based on Monomyth will be concluded in this part.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework, which lays emphasis on Monomyth and Jung’s archetype theory as the narrative pattern of hero’s journey from Monomyth is mainly from the perspective of Jung’s archetypal psychology.Chapter Four will apply the theory of Monomyth with the combination of Psychology of Adolescent Development to the research on the narrative structure of hero’s journey and psychological characteristics of adolescents in animated fantasy feature films.Chapter Five concentrates on the modern significance of psychological development and modern significance of Hero figures in animated fantasy feature films.The last Chapter will conclude the whole paper. Limitations of this paper and the corresponding suggestions will also be put forward.