Riewer: Raiders of the Lost Ark

The Knight's journey is one that we have not seen before the Indiana Jones trilogy. It is a complex adventure taken on by strong willed men with something important to prove. Indiana Jones' character progresses throughout the first and second movies of the trilogy. In Temple of Doom, he is a very selfish "knight" who only really cares about retrieving the prize, or the stone, for the glory and money that accompanies it. This makes him a mercenary knight, which he remains for the majority of that film. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, however, his characters transforms from the mercenary knight during the beginning half of the film, to the indentured knight we see toward the end of the film.

The opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark shows Indy's role as a mercenary knight. He is self-driven to go and find the golden idol and bring it back to his museum or students. However, he loses that battle when Belloq shows up and steals it from him. Indiana's role as a mercenary knight continues throughout the first half of the film. Even when he is asked by the government agency to go find the Ark of the Covenant, although he agrees to go, he is doing it for selfish reasons. He wants to find the Ark so that he can study it and use it in his museum. Harrison Ford once said of his character, "He's kind of a swashbuckling hero type, but he has human frailties, fears, and money problems, and therefore is more down to earth. He does brave things, but I wouldn't describe him as a hero" (Pfeiffer 115). All of these characteristics mentioned by Ford describe Indy's role as the knight; first the mercenary and eventually the indentured. 

Indy's transition from a mercenary knight into an indentured knight comes when he must choose to blow up the Ark of the Covenant, likely killing Marian, or once again letting Belloq take his prize. He chooses the latter, allowing himself to become the slave of the British government, who are the ones funding his adventure. Now as an indentured knight, he must carry out the task of saving the Ark of the Covenant for his rulers, the British government. In addition, he must save himself as well as Marian, while taking down Belloq and the Nazis who are interested in stealing the Ark of the Covenant for their evil purposes.

At the time that these movies came out, America was working to ensure its spot as the strongest nation of the developed world after their loss in Vietnam. So, while Indy's journey seems to have ended with the saving of the Ark of the Covenant, it actually must continue because it was not put in a museum to preserve its incredible power, as Indy wishes that it would. One must then assume that his knight's journey will continue to completion with the third film, as Luke's did in the Star Wars trilogy.