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The Hero's Journey In Unbreakable

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In the classic hero versus villain tale, the struggle between good and evil seems to be black and white. And yet in Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002), the lines are blurred so that the villain creates a hero. The villain, Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) has a disorder in which his bones break like glass and therefore distorting his childhood and making him seem like an outcast. As where our hero, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is the star athlete, who gave up his potential career in football for a girl who he loved. The two characters are juxtaposed in every way possible: fragile to unbreakable, strong to weak, self-assured to needing guidance. Unbreakable uses classic themes of comics and journeys to give life to its characters. The mise-en-scene …show more content…

The hero’s journey is a common plot to follow, the hero is set on some type of trip that our hero is whether knowingly or unknowingly set on that consists of trials and denial of talent and refusal of the call, all to end up with acceptance and a resurrection. In Unbreakable David is set on the journey, Elijah sets him on the path to becoming a hero. David goes through trials with his family conflicts with his wife and child, specifically when Joseph Dunn (Spencer Treat Clark) points a gun at David. This is when David’s refusal of the call is shifted, he sees the impact it has on his son and makes the choice to test his abilities for his son and saves people. The real change in the story happens when it starts raining, the movie is almost over and a storm is happening. Storms are used in plots to represent a variety of things, but generally show a changing of perspective and allows for a revelation. True to form this is when David becomes the “hero” he is meant to be and finds out Elijah’s villainous scheme. The rain is used as a progressive set to push the hero into self-awareness of what's going on around him. David’s journey ultimately sets polarity between the characterization between hero and monster, since the journey always surrounds the hero in test of morality and heroism and the villain is in the background and

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