George Gordon Meade is one of the United States’ greatest reluctant heroes. No American has received a more important call to duty, or resisted the challenge with greater zeal, than did Meade. Reluctantly assuming command of the Army of the Potomac four days before the opening shots of the Battle of Gettysburg, he displayed brilliant generalship, survived General Daniel Sickles’s blatant disobedience, and thwarted General Robert E. Lee’s devastating attacks. The United States owes a great deal to this flawed, seemingly uncharismatic man who won the battle and saved the Republic.
Mythical Story Structure
Screenwriters and movie studios have been writing and producing movies for years about mythical heroes. Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, was one of the important students of myth and legend to lay out the structure known as the hero’s journey.[1] Campbell forged a metaphor describing the hero’s transformation as he faced a dangerous ordeal. George Lucas’s blockbuster Star Wars movies were inspired by Campbell’s mythical structure.[2] Building on Campbell’s work, Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers and Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films, provided their own version of the heroic quest into movie language. A key theme of the hero’s journey is that one person can make a difference.
As a Real-Life Reluctant Hero, Does Meade’s Mythical Transformation Follow Hollywood’s Hero’s Journey?
Film Hero’s Journey
Both Vogler and Voytilla map the hero’s journey as a twelve-step adventure. Vogler furthermore asserts that the hero’s journey is “a set of principles that govern the conduct of life and the world of storytelling the way physics and chemistry govern the physical world.”[3] If this is true, I was wondering how Meade’s journey as a real-life reluctant hero from June 27, 1863, to July 3, 1863, mapped out on the mythical 12-step hero’s journey.
In this installment, I shall map the different mythical archetypes against the key Union army characters at Gettysburg. Archetypes are the roles characters play in a story. As William Shakespeare said in As You Like It, “One man in his time plays many parts.”[4] This means characters can wear more than one archetype mask in a story.
ARCHETYPES – The Roles Mythical Characters Play
ONE. Hero – to serve, protect, and sacrifice: General George Meade. There are willing and unwilling heroes. George Armstrong Custer was a willing hero at Gettysburg. Meade was an unwilling hero. Meade’s reluctant journey was to lead the Army of the Potomac and defeat Robert E. Lee. He was forced to leave the ordinary world of being a corps infantry commander and enter the special world of being an army commander.
TWO. Mentor – to guide: General John Reynolds. On the morning Meade assumes command of the Army of the Potomac, senior-in-rank Reynolds meets with Meade afterwards, encourages Meade, and tells him that he is the right person to lead the army. Meade is doubtful of this advice because Reynolds is like Lee: charismatic, beloved by the troops, and the former superintendent of West Point. Meade knows he is not charismatic and doesn’t believe an uncharismatic commander can beat a charismatic leader.
THREE. Threshold Guardian – to test: Major Henry Tremain, General Sickles aide-de-camp. Tremain is a key minor character who plots with Sickles to disobey orders and move Third Infantry Corps one-half mile beyond the Union defensive line.
FOUR. Herald – to warn and challenge: Colonel James Hardie, President Lincoln’s messenger. Hardie arrives from the White House and enters Meade’s tent located a few miles from Frederick. Hardie wakes up Meade and informs him that he is the new army commander.
FIVE. Shapeshifter – to question and deceive: General Dan Sickles, Commander of Third Corps. Sickles is an unscrupulous general who disobeys orders at Gettysburg and nearly causes the Union to lose the battle. Before Sickles became a general, he was a congressman who shot his wife’s lover in Layfette Square and was acquitted of murder by being the first to use the temporary insanity defense. Sickles commands Third Infantry Corps, numbering 11,000 soldiers.
SIX. Shadow – to destroy: General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Virginia.
SEVEN. Trickster – to disrupt: General Dan Butterfield (Chief of Staff). Butterfield is loyal to the previous Army of the Potomac commander, General Joseph Hooker. Butterfield rumormongers behind Meade’s back and fails to issue orders on time, jeopardizing Meade’s plans. Sickles also plays the trickster role by failing to march his corps as fast as the other infantry corps.
In the next installment, you will be introduced to the 12 different stages a mythical hero archetype goes through in his hero’s journey. [5]
[1] Christopher Vogler in the Forward of Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films, Michael Wise Productions, Studio City, California, 1999, viii.
[2] Christopher Vogler in the Forward of Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films, Michael Wise Productions, Studio City, California, 1999, viii.
[3] Vogler, xiii
[4] Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films, Michael Wise Productions, Studio City, California, 1999, 13.
[5] The sources for these 12 steps are Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films, and Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Third Edition, Michael Wise Productions, Studio City, California, 2007.
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