Life and death as mythological elements in Kate Atkinsons's works

Mythology and literature in the broader sense have the functions of entertaining and educating masses via the exemplary tales of heroes. The main features in all mythological tales are traceable in most forms of literature in which exist protagonists setting forth for a journey. Researchers like Campbell, Eliade, Rank, Raglan and Dundes studied several mythological tales and found out that there are recurring patterns in all. Even if the patterns analyzed by different researchers differ somehow from each other, life and death as mythological elements are always to be found in all cycles of hero patterns. In this thesis, literary works of a contemporary author Kate Atkinson have been studied to analyze the elements of life and death and their functions in each work. These two elements have proven to be present at every step of the hero journeys as part of the forming of a hero. Key words: mythology, hero, hero patterns, life, death