Overview
In his chapter on “Polarity,” Vogler focuses on the motif of polarity as both “a persistent feature . . .” and “essential principle of storytelling, governed by a few simple rules but capable of generating infinite conflict, complexity, and audience involvement” within the monomyth form (315). For the purposes of our work tonight, we will be breaking this motif down further into three specific applications to George Lucas’s (and Roy Thomas’s) Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope—polarized characters, polarized plot constructions, and polarized forces. Further, we will be analyzing how both Lucas and Thomas—as primarily visual storytellers—use aesthetic form to further advance the motif of polarity, the messaging within the monomyth, and the literal and metaphoric construction(s) of the film’s “dragon.”
Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. 3rd ed., Michael Wiese Productions, 2007. http://craftywriters.club/reading/christopher-vogl...
rubric is attached as a file.