The essay will focus on defining the anti-hero’s journey:
Formulate a “map” of the anti-hero’s journey. What would be considered essential adventures and trials in the journey? How and why does the anti-hero deviate from the hero’s journey?
– What role does external temptation play in the anti-hero’s journey? Do you believe that all anti-heroes start out with good intentions, in the same place as heroes, and then are tempted from that path at some point? Or, do you wish to argue that anti-heroes start from fundamentally different places than heroes? Do they have completely separate and different paths?
– What role does madness and/or inner conflict play in the anti-hero’s journey? Heroes encounter challenges and trials; do anti-heroes, in contrast, encounter self-doubt and psychological trauma?
– A hero’s journey (usually) ends with a triumphant (or at least, wise and experienced) return home. How does the anti-hero’s journey end? Are anti-heroes allowed some sort of happy ending or return? Or, because of their loss of heroic status at some point, are they doomed to forgo the happy ending? Or, is returning home even considered a happy ending for an anti-hero; do they get to experience an alternative to the hero’s happy ending?