A Circular Illusion
Victoria Lynn Schmidt's heroine's journey is a circle. The heroine develops throughout the story, but ultimately ends up back where she started in her 'perfect world.' This ending world is supposedly actually perfect rather than an illusion of perfection. However, arguably, no world is perfect. It seems good in the moment, but flaws will always be revealed, and that's part of the fluctuation of life. In Legally Blonde , Elle graduated and was happily in a relationship and about to be employed, but she will always have more challenges in her relationships and job-- maybe she isn't ready to be engaged, maybe she will get overwhelmed at work. This way of thinking may seem pessimistic, but I think it simply acknowledges that just because the story appears to have a happy ending does not mean that the character is living in a perfect world but rather that the audience member is only being shown the highlights of that characters life. To further examine this,...