TAKEHOMEESSAY!

Mythopoeia is a term that was coined by J.R.R Tolkien in the 1930s, when he used the word as a title for one of the poems in his Tree and Leaf. This new term described a genre of literature where fictional mythology are created and/or used by the author. This genre can be and has been transferred over to film. A good example of this happening is M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable(2000).

One of the essential aspects of mythopoeia is the involvement of at least one quest, and tasks within that quest to achieve an ultimate goal. In the movie Unbreakable the most obvious quest is that of Elijah. Elijah is someone who was teased all his life because of his extremely brittle bones. This would cause anyone to have severe mental problems. With Elijah, like many people, he doesn’t know exactly who he is or where he belongs in the world. His quest is to find out exactly that. The difference between Elijah and the average person is the way he goes about completing his quest. He believes that if there is a person like him (brittle and, may I add, black) there must be someone on the other end of the spectrum (‘Unbreakable’ and, coincidentally, white). Elijah goes about finding this unbreakable man by committing terrorist acts (these were his tasks) and hoping for a soul survivor who walks away unscathed. When Elijah finds his archetypal opposite he realizes that he is the archetypal villain.

‘Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world. To not know why you’re here. That’s… That’s just an awful feeling. I almost gave up hope. There were so many times I questioned myself. But I found you. So many sacrifices just to find you. Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. I’m not a mistake. It all makes sense. In a comic, do you know who the villains going to be? He’s the exact opposite of the hero. And most times there friends like you and me. I should have known way back when, you know why David? Because of the kids! They called me Mr. Glass …’

Unbreakable(2000)

 

The less obvious quest in the movie is David Dunn’s. David is a security officer for a university football arena. He isn’t happy with his life. His quest, of course, is to be happy. His tasks in completing his quest (Though he may not have known at the time) include forming a bond with Elijah, discovering his abilities, and using them for good.

Elijah Price: ‘It has begun. Tell me something David, when you woke up this morning, was it still there? The sadness.’

David Dunn: ‘No’

Elijah Price: ‘I think this is where we shake hands.’

Unbreakable(2000)

 

The above quote is taken from the conversation that David and Elijah have the morning after David rescued some children from a maniac who killed the children’s parents and took their home. It would seem as though David’s ‘place in this world’ is to save people from wrongdoing and the reason he was unhappy before was because he wasn’t doing what he was ‘put on earth’ to do. After he starts saving people, he’s happy.

Another reason for why the movie Unbreakable can be considered mythopoeic is because it has an archetypal storyline. What I mean by this is that it follows a template that is used in many comic books (mythopoeia in themselves), or more specifically, it uses the beginning of this template. In most comic books, there is an awakening, a confrontation with a minor evil and a culminating grand finale with the heroes arch enemy. This can be seen in such notables as Spiderman(2002), Batman(2005) and Iron-man(2008). In Spiderman, the awakening was the spider bite, the minor evil was uncle Ben’s killer and the grand finale was the green goblin. In Iron man the awakening was the near death experience, the minor evil was the terrorists and the grand finally was Obadiah Stane. And finally, in Batman the awakening was Bruce falling into the cave of bats, the minor evil was Carmine Falcone and the grand finally was Ra’s al Ghul.

Unbreakable only uses the first part of this template: the awakening. In the movie, David has no idea of the potential that he harnesses until his equivalent to Spiderman’s bite, Tony Stark’s near death experience and Bruce Wayne’s fall into the cave shows him what he’s capable of.

‘If there is someone like me in the world and I am at one end of the spectrum couldn’t there be someone else, the opposite of me at the other end? Someone who doesn’t get sick, doesn’t get hurt like the rest of us, and he probably doesn’t even know it The kind of person these stories are about, a person put here to protect the rest of us, to guard us. I know what’s going through your mind right now. Your searching for meaning in all of this. Know one thing. 131 people died so you could finally understand the destiny for which you were born. Are you ready for the truth?’

Unbreakable(2000) 

The final reason for why Unbreakable can be considered mythopoeic is M. Night Shyamalan’s use of (or creation of) mythological themes and archetypes. One example of this is the use of colors. All major characters and events are associated with particular colors. Elijah is almost always seen wearing purple, David Dunn’s “Super hero suit” (his rain coat) is green, and the murderer is seen wearing an orange jumpsuit that stood out from everything else. These colors identify characters within the mythopoeia just as the thunderbolt, the war hammer, or the trident identify Zeus, Thor, or Poseidon.

Another example of a mythological theme from the movie is David’s weakness: water. The fact that David‘s weakness is water doesn’t matter as much as the fact that he has a weakness at all. This theme of a supernatural being, being vulnerable to an otherwise harmless or non-life threatening force, is seen thousands (if not millions) of times throughout history. We see it in Greek mythology with Achilles’ heel and we see it in comic books with Superman’s kryptonite.

‘Your bones don’t break, mine do. That’s clear. Your cells react to bacteria and viruses differently than mine. You don’t get sick, I do. That’s also clear. But for some reason, you and I react the same way to water. We swallow it too fast, we choke. We get some in our lungs, we drown. However unreal it may seem, we are connected you and I. We’re on the same curve, just on opposite ends.’ 

Unbreakable (2008)

Elijah’s faith in David’s potential is shaken after he finds out that David almost drowned as a child. A few scenes later, we see Elijah in a state of deep thought in a comic book store. It is only after he knocks down a random comic book that he has an epiphany. He realizes that just like other heroes, David has a weakness. He presents his case David in the above quote.

 When it all comes down to it, a comic book is one of the most predominant forms of myth-telling still around today. Unbreakable is essentially a comic book come to life, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that the movie itself could be considered a mythopoeia? The answer is yes, very much so. You need only to look at the solid facts to come to this conclusion. Mythopoeia have tasks and quests; so does Unbreakable. Comic books (a type of mythopoeia) have a very distinct sequence of events, one that they share with Unbreakable. Finally, archetypal heroes have deadly vulnerabilities, just like David Dunn. If J.R.R Tolkien were alive today, I firmly believe that if he saw Unbreakable he would be seeing exactly his ideas from the tree leaf in motion and ultimately, his idea of mythopoeia. This would make him happy. Very happy.