Jackson's Essay

The Lighting Thief

This book The Lightning Thief is about Greek mythology in modern day America and a young boy fighting his way through monsters and finding out about himself on the way. This book, like many others, follows the Hero's Journey Pattern.

Percy Jackson is the main character of this story. He lives with his mother and evil step-father in the beginning of the book. At first no one ever mentions his birth father which led me to believe that this coincidence might follow the first step of the Hero's Journey Pattern which tells you that the hero was born unnaturally to a virgin mother and some sort of king or "God" father.

The next step to the pattern tells you that the hero is possibly in danger as a young child and is kept safe or protected from evil. Little did Percy know that his best friend Grover was actually a satyr, a mythical goat-human, sent to watch over Percy.

The third step of the Hero's Journey Patter mentions that the hero gets called to adventure. After a series of unusual events, his best friend Grover begins to give him the real story of what is going on in his life and why this is happening to him. Grover then decides to take Percy to Camp Half-blood.

Here is where Percy really finds out who he is and what he is meant to do. Percy now starts realizing his fate and begins to train. He is trained by his former Latin teacher who is actually an immortal centaur and trainer of heroes. Which happens to be the next step of the Hero's Journey Pattern.

The next step to the pattern says that the hero travels to the Underworld and almost dies. Percy does just that, he travels to the Underworld and faces Hades to negotiate his mother's life.

On the way to the Underworld Percy faces Cerberus, the monstrous three headed dog. This part of the story follows the pattern almost exactly, it says he will face a monster, villain, or giant.

The seventh step to the Hero's Journey Pattern tells you that the hero will marry a princess or somehow become king. This step is one that the book doesn't follow exactly . Percy does end up having a little bit of a thing with Annabeth near the end. That is the closest thing I could think of that follows that part of the pattern.

The end result of the Hero's Journey Pattern says that order is restored and something or someone is safe. This is also the end result of this book, Percy restores order between the gods when no one believed he could.

If you are a fan of Greek mythology or would just like to see the Hero's Journey Pattern in story form I would highly recommend this book. In my opinion this is the best hero book I have read since Hercules, you might even find some things are similar between the two.