Christopher Vogler The Writers Journey
God by their arrogance and pride.
T h e story of the Titanic resonates with an old literary concept, T h e Ship of
Fools. Storytellers created this satirical form around the time of Columbus' first voy
age to the N e w World. One of the first expressions was Sebastian Brant's narrative
poem, "Das Narrenschiff," printed only two years after Columbus first successfully
crossed the Atlantic. It tells of a ship's passengers bound for Narragonia, the land of
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T H E W R I T E R ' S JOURNEY ~ T H I R D EDITION
Christopher Vogler
fools, and is a scathing depiction of the follies of its time. It was widely translated
and adapted into books and plays.
T h e Ship of Fools is an allegory, a story in which all the conditions of life
and levels of society are lampooned savagely in the situation of a boatful of pathetic