The powerful trope of the quest

Iconic Monument Valley - one of the film's locations (Pixabay)

 

One of my favourite films is Ridley Scott’s 1991 drama Thelma & Louise.  If you’ve never seen it, I recommend it.  Here’s the plot breakdown:

Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a waitress in Arkansas. She is a warm, capable, sympathetic woman stuck in a dead-end job.  Her bubbly, somewhat ditzy friend Thelma is trapped in a loveless marriage with an oafish husband who treats her disrespectfully. They are attractive, good-natured women whose lives lack purpose and emotional substance.  Louise persuades Thelma to come away on a short mountain break, and off they drive in Louise’s green 1969 Thunderbird.

Their merry little vacation takes an appalling turn.  Thelma, revelling in her freedom, gets a little tipsy while dancing with a stranger at a roadside bar.   When she repels his advances, he sexually assaults her.  When Louise comes to Thelma’s rescue – wielding the hand pistol Thelma brought with her – the man sneers and insults them both.  Louise, deeply triggered by this as she herself is a rape victim, loses her impulse control and shoots him dead.

Panicked and horrified, the women flee the scene.  Thelma wants to go to the police but Louise fears they will be not be believed – they cannot plead self-defence as the man was unarmed.  Her plan is to escape to Mexico, so she appeals to her on-off boyfriend to transfer her life savings, which then get stolen by a handsome young thief who seduces Thelma.  To salvage their desperate situation, Thelma robs a bank at gunpoint.  The two women are now fugitives on the run from the FBI, who perceive them to be armed and dangerous.  The only person interested in listening to their side of the story and in saving their lives is the Arkansas State Police Investigator (Harvey Keitel) – pretty much the one decent man in the saga.

As their plight spirals out of control, Thelma and Louise find comfort and strength, even humour, in their friendship.  Despite the gravity of their predicament, the film is often very funny, in a gritty, raucous, irreverent way.  As the women travel through America’s magnificent desert landscapes, the film takes on a luminous, spiritual quality.  Hans Zimmer’s haunting score darkens.  The FBI close in.  Thelma and Louise finally arrive at their journey’s end on the brink of the Grand Canyon.

Thelma & Louise is a classic American road movie and a classic quest story.  The two women undergo a deep, traumatic transformation during their epic journey.  Sarandon and Davies are superb in their roles, and Thelma’s character arc in particular is striking.   At a crucial point in the film, she says, “Something has crossed over in me, and I can’t go back.” 

By the end of their journey, their quest has changed completely – from desiring an elusive fulfilment and satisfaction in their lives, a little happiness, what they now desire is freedom, and they are prepared to sacrifice their lives to achieve it.

I love the quest trope.   It’s a trope beloved of fantasy fiction, but it spans many different genres.  Indeed it must be one of the oldest tropes in literary history, reflected countless times in our ancient stories, myths and legends.  A physical quest changes people, and thus becomes an emotional and spiritual quest.  It’s about transformation on a deep level: what changes a person, what makes them move forward – or back.  Christian literature is naturally packed with the quest trope.  John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one obvious example, but all of us can think of favourite books, films and scripts that reflect the Quest theme in its multifarious forms.

So … which are your favourite quest stories?   How did they change you as a reader and a person?

And if you wrote a quest story … what would it be about?

Philippa Linton is a lay minister in the Anglican church.  Her day job is working in the education and learning department of the United Reformed Church.  She has written a devotional for the anthology 'Light for the Writer's Soul' published by Media Associates International, and her short story 'Magnificat' appears in the ACW Christmas anthology 'Merry Christmas Everyone'.