A Hero's Journey To Become A Tragic Hero

When the first bomb hit, it shook the radiators; everyone knew something bad had happened, but it was not until the second hit they knew they were in trouble. Chris works in a restaurant about 100 feet away from the explosion site of the second bomb in the Boston Marathon Massacre, so he witnessed the full effects and the pandemonium that it caused. The impact of some of the events are serious, and life changing. In a hero’s journey, the hero has a choice: they can take up the challenge, or leave unscathed. Chris did not have that choice, he could not unsee what he had seen, and he did not have the option to run away. These circumstances are what makes him a hero, and the events that followed the bombing can be related to those of a hero’s

Two important stages that characters go through to become a literary hero include their call to action: something that stirs up their daily life, and their refusal of the call to adventure, whether it be mentally or physically. Standing on the patio of his restaurant, he watched the second bomb go off and “[he] looked over [when] all the sudden somebody’s leg landed next to [him]” and that’s when he knew it was far worse than he thought (Chris Galligan). The bombs shook his world pretty hard, and confused him; just as the call to adventure does for most traditional heros. Chris regarded the next few hours of his life as if it was like being in a movie, almost surreal and as if it really hadn’t happened. Here, Chris refuses his call to action, though unconsciously. Though he didn’t realize it, feeling like the events of the Boston Massacre were unreal was still refusing the call to action. Typically in a hero's journey, the next step would be to embark on his or her journey. However, this is where Chris’s journey differs; he didn’t have a choice on whether or not he could walk away and completely forget the bombings happened. He had to deal with the aftereffects, no questions