Similarities Between Napoleon Dynamite And The Odyssey

A hero’s journey is expressed through a graph. Almost every movie or book follows it in some way. It starts with the beginning of the story and goes throughout until the end conveying the whole adventure that the main character goes through. This graph that helps in each english classroom to movie producers was created by Joseph Campbell. Comparing two different movie scenes or story chapters could introduce this idea and the identical ways that stories are written by. For example, The Odyssey relates to Napoleon Dynamite because they both face sadness and distress when they lose the person they are the most comfortable being around. The crisis is the biggest trial the hero faces in the special world. The danger is very high during this stage.

The treasure that the character receives could be something physical or something mental. The hero could receive bravery or wisdom; they could also receive something physical, such as, money or a wife. Although in the beginning of a story we find the hero probably wanting something physical, but as their perception of life changes, by the end of the story they change and are more accepting and happy with just an internal change into a better person. This relates to The Odyssey and Odysseus’ treasure he receives because he not only becomes re-acquainted with his wife and son, he also gains an internal change in his attitude, too. Sometimes as a reader you have to search for the personality change in the character in a movie or book, but it is almost always there. Napoleon’s treasure that he acquires in Napoleon Dynamite is that his relationship with Deb returns. He gets his best friend, Deb, back; whereas in the Odyssey, Odysseus gets his wife back. Napoleon changes internally by gaining a newfound confidence and stability of best friends. He danced in front of the whole school and everyone applauds for him. Now he doesn’t get beat up daily anymore because of how his performance amazes everyone. In the Odyssey, Homer writes about the meeting of Penelope and Odysseus. He notices that she has moved their bed, unlike the two women in both stories, Penelope was leery about it actually being Odysseus. Odysseus had to prove to her that it was him, as Homer wrote, “No other man has ever laid eyes on it- only my own slave, Actoris, that my father sent with me as a gift- she kept our door. You make my stiff heart know that I am yours” (Odyssey, “Odysseus and Penelope,” 946). This is how Odysseus proves to his wife, Penelope, that it has to be him. Deb has intuition to know that Napoleon would never say something like Uncle Rico accused him of saying. Odysseus tells Penelope that he even made