The permanence of the classic heroic model in The Lightning Thief and The Titan's Curse, of series books Percy Jackson and the Olympians

• Grant number: 13/00926-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2013
• End date: March 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Maria Celeste Tommasello Ramos
• Grantee: Guilherme Augusto Louzada Ferreira de Morais
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research seeks to relate and compare the constitution of the male hero in Classical Literature, specifically in the founding texts of Greco-Roman Mythology and the constitution of the hero and heroine in two books of the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. First, we intend to study the heroic male model, and from this model, compare it to heroic female model and its construction within the corpus of works that are The Lightning Thief and The Titan's Curse, by the American writer Rick Riordan, aimed at children and youth. In the series, are chronicled the adventures of Percy Jackson, hero with modern attributes, but with stereotype and model well around mythological characters of classic texts as Perseus, Odysseus, Hercules etc., Described by Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, Sophocles, Virgil or Ovid, for example. In the same context, we try to analyze the female characters with the same attributes in the corpus studied, for example, Annabeth, female figure who fights alongside Percy Jackson character. Our hypothesis is that, in the analyzed texts, the woman becomes, also, heroine, which in antiquity was rarest. The analysis will be based mainly considerations Campbell in "The Hero's Adventure" from The Power of Myth (1990) and The Hero with a Thousands Faces (1992) to reflect on the adventures of the hero and several other aspects. At the end of the study, we anticipate the discussion of the motivations that led the Literature, both in antiquity and in the modern world, the need to reflect on a prototype hero or even a superhero or demigod, be it a man or a woman.