Fight or Flee from a War

Jenny’s Hero Journey

To follow the hero’s journey, you have to go through each stage on the cycle. During these cycles, a change occurs and the character no longer has his/her timid traits anymore. Instead gains a more daring or braver trait that goes with each challenge. In Forrest Gump, there is a character named Jenny that fits directly into these cycles. After going off to college, Jenny did not want to get close to Forrest at all; instead she wanted to experience more things in her life. As time went by, Jenny went through some tough challenges in her life, and somehow Forrest would always be there to help. Unfortunately, she still did not want to be with Forrest. Later on, Forrest and Jenny reunited, had a baby, and got married. For Jenny to go through the hero’s journey, she has to endure the challenges and changes that happened during the cycle.

The call to adventure is what prompts Jenny to cross the threshold and the challenge of her journey. Jenny’s call was to be with Forrest, but throughout the story-line she kept refusing her call. The first time she refused her call was when she was in the car with the guy she recently met, and was about to make a bad decision, but Forrest helped her out of it by beating up the guy. However, Jenny still did not want to get close to Forrest. The next time Forrest got rejected, was when he rescued Jenny while she was singing on a stage at a strip club. At the same time, Jenny was thinking about jumping off the bridge, but Forrest convinced her not to. Even though he keeps doing the right thing, Jenny cannot see how much Forrest cares about her, thus she jumped into a random car and left him again. The next time Forrest seen Jenny was at the anti-war rally. She called out to him from the crowd and then they both ran through the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool, which was the threshold in here hero’s journey, meeting each other again. They went to the Black Panther party, where Forrest was thrown out and Jenny ditched...