Chapter 1: Comp blog

In the first chapter of this book, Foster lays out the details for a quest. In most literature, modern or classic, "every trip is a quest."m A book called "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett is not usually seen as a quest,  but it does detail a journey. The book can be broken into the conventions that Foster recognizes, every trip/journey follows a pattern and that pattern is a quest. The first component is the hero, the central character of the story that makes a difference for other characters. This character was Skeeter, who was not content with her life, living at home with her mom, trying to marry a "good southern gentleman", as been customary in her family. The second and third convention is when she is presented with writing a book about African American maids in the deep south during the Civil Rights Movement. The fourth being the challenges Skeeter faces form friends and family, even the law. And the last component that seals this book as a quest, is when Skeeter acquires self-knowledge and becomes a publisher in New York. Skeeter chose to publish her book with the author as anonymous due to the personal encounters she faced and talked about in her book. But when her enemies and fiancee find out that it is, in fact, Skeeter that wrote the book, they were furious. Her fiancee left her. It's this transformation that shows a wonderful illustration of Foster's definition of a conventional quest.

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