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Monomyth
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The term Monomyth (often referred to as the hero's journey) as used within the field of comparative mythology refers to a basic pattern supposedly found in many narratives from around the world. This widely-distributed pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions seem to share a fundamental structure and stages, which he summarized in a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
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Campbell and other scholars describe narratives of Buddha, Moses, and Christ as sharing the monomyth, and Campbell argues that other classic myths from many cultures rely upon this basic structure.
Although well-known in popular culture, the monomyth has fallen out of favor in academia, which currently leans away from comparative mythology (comparativism) and toward particularism.
Summary
In the monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events.
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Encyclopedia
The term Monomyth (often referred to as the hero's journey) as used within the field of comparative mythology refers to a basic pattern supposedly found in many narratives from around the world. This widely-distributed pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions seem to share a fundamental structure and stages, which he summarized in a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
-
Campbell and other scholars describe narratives of Buddha, Moses, and Christ as sharing the monomyth, and Campbell argues that other classic myths from many cultures rely upon this basic structure.
Although well-known in popular culture, the monomyth has fallen out of favor in academia, which currently leans away from comparative mythology (comparativism) and toward particularism.
Summary
In the monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift or "boon." The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, the hero often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Buddha, and Christ, for example, follow this structure very closely.
Campbell describes some seventeen stages or steps along this journey. Very few myths contain all seventeen stages — some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These seventeen stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation, and Return. "Departure" deals with the hero's adventure prior to the quest; "Initiation" deals with the hero's many adventures along the way; and "Return" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.
The Seventeen Stages of the Monomyth
Departure (or Separation)
The Call to Adventure
The adventure begins with the hero receiving a call to action, such as a threat to the peace of the community, or the hero simply falls into or blunders into it. The call is often announced to the hero by another character who acts as a "herald". The herald, often represented as dark or terrifying and judged evil by the world, may call the character to adventure simply by the crisis of his appearance.
Campbell: The Call To Adventure "A blunder apparently the merest chance reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood."
Classic examples: Sometimes the call to adventure happens of the character's own volition. In the story of the Minotaur, Theseus learns the tale of the beast and the terrible sacrifice to appease it, which sets him on a quest to destroy it. In Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha, the titular character becomes weary of his way of life and decides he must venture away from his accustomed life in order to attain spiritual enlightenment. Most Buddhist myths describe the Buddha as becoming bored with his royal life and venturing into the world. Other times, the hero is plunged into adventure by unforeseen events. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus is caught in the terrible winds of the angered god Poseidon and sent off to distant lands.
Refusal of the Call
In some stories, the hero initially refuses the call to adventure. When this happens, the hero may suffer somehow, and may eventually choose to answer, or may continue to decline the call.
Campbell: Refusal of the Call "Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or 'culture,' the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved."
Classic examples: Mythology is rife with examples of what happens to those who refuse the call too long or do not take it seriously. A Persian city was turned to stone, inhabitants and all, for refusing the call of Allah. In Judeo-Christian mythology, Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back with longing to her old life when she had been summoned forth from her city by Yahweh and is thus prevented from being the "hero". One of the clearest references to the refusal and its consequences comes in the voice of Yahweh in Proverbs 1:24-27 and 32:
- Because I have called, and ye refused ... I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. ... For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
Alternately, Jonah is famous for refusing initially to answer God's call. Instead, he tried to flee God's orders by going overseas, and God had a giant fish swallow him. When Jonah was released from the fish for three days after praying for forgiveness, God spoke to him again. This time, Jonah obeyed.
Supernatural Aid
After the hero has accepted the call, he encounters a protective figure (often elderly) who provides special tools and advice for the adventure ahead, such as an amulet or a weapon.
Classic example: In Greek mythology, Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of string and a sword before he enters the labyrinth to confront the Minotaur.
The Crossing of the First Threshold
The hero must cross the threshold between the world he is familiar with and that which he is not. Often this involves facing a "threshold guardian", an entity that works to keep all within the protective confines of the world but must be encountered in order to enter the new zone of experience.
Belly of The Whale
The hero, rather than passing a threshold, passes into the new zone by means of rebirth. Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.
Biblical applications: In the gospels, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus before Jesus begins his public ministry.
Classical Example: In the story of Dionysus, Hera sends hungry titans to devour the infant Dionysus. The titans tear apart the child and consume his flesh. However Dionysus's heart is saved by Hestia, goddess of the hearth, allowing Dionysus to be reborn as a god.
Initiation
The Road of Trials
Once past the threshold, the hero encounters a dream landscape of ambiguous and fluid forms. The hero is challenged to survive a succession of obstacles and, in so doing, amplifies his consciousness. The hero is helped covertly by the supernatural helper or may discover a benign power supporting him in his passage.
Mother as Goddess
The ultimate trial is often represented as a marriage between the hero and a queenlike, or mother-like figure. This represents the hero's mastery of life (represented by the feminine) as well as the totality of what can be known. When the hero is female, this becomes a male figure.
Woman as Temptress
His awareness expanded, the hero may fixate on the disunity between truth and his subjective outlook, inherently tainted by the flesh. This is often represented with revulsion or rejection of a female figure.
Atonement with the Father
The hero reconciles the tyrant and merciful aspects of the father-like authority figure to understand himself as well as this figure.
Biblical applications: In the gospels, Jesus wrestles with his impending death in the Garden of Gethsemane, before submitting to his Father's will.
Apotheosis
The hero's ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness. Quite frequently the hero's idea of reality is changed; the hero may find an ability to do new things or to see a larger point of view, allowing the hero to sacrifice himself.
The Ultimate Boon
The hero is now ready to obtain that which he has set out, an item or new awareness that, once he returns, will benefit the society that he has left.
Return
Refusal of the Return
Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto his fellow man.
Classic examples: After obtaining Nirvana, Buddha doubted whether he could communicate the path to enlightenment (though some Buddhist traditions hold that this was only cunning politics by Buddha: by saying this he gave people the impression that he didn't want to teach them, which made them curious and eager to hear all about it).
The Magic Flight
When the boon's acquisition (or the hero's return to the world) comes against opposition, a chase or pursuit may ensue before the hero returns.
Classic examples: In many fairy tales and folktales, it is literally a magic flight, with the hero or heroine transforming objects to stop the pursuit (The Master Maid, The Water Nixie) or transforming himself and any companions to hide themselves (Farmer Weathersky or Foundling-Bird).
Rescue from Without
The hero may need to be rescued by forces from the ordinary world. This may be because the hero has refused to return or because he is successfully blocked from returning with the boon. The hero loses his ego.
The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.
Master of Two Worlds
Because of the boon or due to his experience, the hero may now perceive both the divine and human worlds.
Biblical application: In the Christ story, Jesus is able to return to the ordinary world after resurrection.
Freedom to Live
The hero bestows the boon to his fellow man.
Classic examples: Christ returns to the ordinary world after his resurrection, but not as an ordinary man. He can seem to be as others are and interact with them, but his body is a "glorified" body, capable of assuming visible and palpable form, but freed from the bonds of space and time. He is now able to give life to others through his own death and resurrection. Other traditional examples of something similar are Elijah, Enoch, and Khidr, the "immortal prophet" of the Sufis.
Other Formulations
Campbell's proposed structure has been expanded and modified since its conception. Many modern characterizations of it add in new steps (such as the hero having a miraculous birth) or combine or prune others. For instance, Phil Cousineau, in his book, The Hero's Journey, divides it up into the following eight steps:
- The Call to Adventure
- The Road of Trials
- The Vision Quest
- The Meeting with the Goddess
- The Boon
- The Magic Flight
- The Return Threshold
- The Master of Two Worlds
Another eight-step formulation was given by David Adams Leeming in his book, Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero:
- Miraculous conception and birth
- Initiation of the hero-child
- Withdrawal from family or community for meditation and preparation
- Trial and Quest
- Death
- Descent into the underworld
- Resurrection and rebirth
- Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement
The Hero's Journey
The phrase "the hero's journey," to describe the monomyth, first entered into popular discourse through two documentaries. The first, released in 1987, The Hero's Journey: The World of Joseph Campbell, was accompanied by a 1990 companion book, The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (with Phil Cousineau and Stuart Brown, eds.). The second was Bill Moyers's series of seminal interviews with Campbell, released in 1988 as the documentary (and companion book) The Power of Myth. The phrase was then referenced in the title of a popular guidebook for screenwriters, released in the 1990s, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers, by Christopher Vogler . Though they used the phrase in their works, Cousineau, Moyers, and Vogler all attribute the phrase and the model of The Hero's Journey to Joseph Campbell.
Influence of the Monomyth
The monomyth has influenced a number of artists, musicians, poets, and filmmakers, including Bob Dylan and George Lucas. Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead had long noted Campbell's influence and agreed to participate in a seminar with him in 1986 entitled From Ritual to Rapture.
Campbell's work has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists, for example, in creating screenplays for movies. The best known is perhaps George Lucas, who has acknowledged a debt to Campbell regarding both the original Star Wars trilogy and its prequels.
In addition, leaders in the men's movement, notably Robert Bly and Michael J. Meade, have used Campbell's insight as a guide for personal spiritual growth.
George Lucas and Star Wars
George Lucas's deliberate use of Campbell's theory of the monomyth in the making of the Star Wars movies is well-documented. In addition to the extensive discussion between Campbell and Bill Moyers broadcast in 1988 on PBS as The Power of Myth (Filmed at "Skywalker Ranch"), on Campbell's influence on the Star Wars films, Lucas, himself, gave an extensive interview for the biography Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind (Larsen and Larsen, 2002, pages 541-543) on this topic. In this interview, Lucas states that in the early 1970s after completing his early film, American Graffiti, "it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books.... It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with A Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classical motifs"(p.541).
Twelve years after the making of The Power of Myth, Moyers and Lucas met again for the 1999 interview, the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers, to further discuss the impact of Campbell's work on Lucas's films . In addition, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution sponsored an exhibit during the late 1990s called Star Wars: The Magic of Myth which discussed the ways in which Campbell's work shaped the Star Wars films . A companion guide of the same name was published in 1997.
Chris Vogler, The Writer's Journey, and Hollywood films
Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, created a now-famous 7-page company memo, A Practical Guide to The Hero With a Thousand Faces, based on Campbell's work which inspired films such as Disney's 1994 film, The Lion King. Vogler's memo was later developed into the late 1990s book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers. This story structure is evident in a vast number of successful Hollywood films including the Matrix series.
Orson Scott Card and Ender's Game
In his book, Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card gives a very complete example of the monomyth structure, with the main character, Ender Wiggin, fulfilling all eight primary stages of it (using Leeming's formulation):
- Miraculous Birth In a world where only two children are normally allowed, Ender is born as the third child by special government decree
- Initiation Ender shows remarkable intelligence at a young age
- Withdrawal Ender is removed from his family and sent to Battle School
- Trial and Quest Ender learns of the threat to humanity from the Buggers
- Death Ender grows despondent after his unit is broken up, and he is sent back to Earth
- Descent into the underworld Ender's sister helps him feel like part of humanity once again
- Resurrection and rebirth Ender refuses to play the simulations anymore, and ends the game by destroying the Buggers' homeworld
- Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement Ender realizes that the simulations were in fact real and has to cope with this.
The narrative structure within Ender's Game doesn't follow this structure perfectly linearly. Many elements of it are actually repeated throughout the book. For instance, the latter four steps can also describe the psychological states Ender went through after his realization of what he'd done to the Buggers.
The men's movement
Poet Robert Bly, Michael J. Meade, and others involved in the men's movement have applied and expanded the concept of the hero's journey and the monomyth as a metaphor for personal spiritual and psychological growth, particularly in the mythopoetic men's movement.
Characteristic of the mythopoetic men's movement is a tendency to retell fairy tales and engage in their exegesis as a tool for personal insight. Using frequent references to archetypes as drawn from Jungian analytical psychology, the movement focuses on issues of gender role, gender identity and wellness for modern men. Advocates would often engage in storytelling with music, these acts being seen as a modern extension to a form of "new age shamanism" popularized by Michael Harner at approximately the same time.
Among its most famous advocates were the poet Robert Bly, whose book Iron John: A Book About Men was a best-seller, being an exegesis of the fairy tale "Iron John" by the Brothers Grimm.
The mythopoetic men's movement spawned a variety of groups and workshops, led by authors such as Bly and Robert L. Moore. Some serious academic work came out of this movement, including the creation of various magazines and non-profit organizations, such as the Mankind Project.
Criticism
Scholars have questioned the very validity of the monomyth, its usefulness as a tool for critical investigation and interpretation of narrative, and its male bias. According to Lesley Northup, the theory does not have much support in the mainstream study of mythology, which currently tends to view highly general and universal claims with suspicion. Donald J. Consentino remarks, "It is just as important to stress differences as similarities, to avoid creating a (Joseph) Campbell soup of myths that loses all local flavor."; Marta Weigl rejects the idea of a "monomyth" in which women appear only exceptionally, and then as indistinguishable from men. Others have found the categories Campbell works with so vague as to be meaningless, and lacking the support required of scholarly argument: Muriel Crespi, writing in response to Campbell's filmed presentation of his model characterized it as "...unsatisfying from a social science perspective. Campbell's ethnocentrism will raise objections, and his analytic level is so abstract and devoid of ethnographic context that myth loses the very meanings supposed to be embedded in the "hero." In Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth (1984), editor Alan Dundes dismisses Campbell's work, characterizing him as a popularizer: "like most universalists, he is content to merely assert universality rather than bother to document it. [
] If Campbell's generalizations about myth are not substantiated, why should students consider his work?"
Thoughtless use of monomyth structure is often blamed for lack of originality and clichιs in popular culture, especially big-budget Hollywood films. In addition to the popularity of Campbell-influenced guides such as The Writer's Journey, the influential book Screenplay by Syd Field also proposed an ideal three-act structure, which is easily compatible with modern screenwriters' attempts to craft a monomyth. However, since the peak popularity of cinematic monomyth narratives in the 1990s, some would-be blockbuster movies that have been seen as conscious attempts to follow the structure have met with indifference from critics and often disappointing performance at the box office.
Novelist David Brin has criticized the monomyth, arguing that it is anti-populist, and was used by kings and priests to justify tyranny. Brin also pointed out that the existence of a monomyth may reflect cross-cultural historical similarities, rather than some deeper "human insight". He points out that, until relatively recently, storytellers were dependent upon the oligarchy for their livelihood and that the aristocracy only recently lost its power to punish irreverence. Once those historical factors disappeared, science fiction emerged--a story-telling mode Brin sees as the antithesis of Campbell's monomyth.
In a similar vein, American philosopher John Shelton Lawrence and American religious scholar Robert Jewett have discussed an "American Monomyth" in many of their books, The American Monomyth, The Myth of the American Superhero, and Captain American and the Crusade of Zealous Nationalism. They present this as an American reaction to the Campbellian monomyth. The "American Monomyth" storyline is: A community in a harmonious paradise is threatened by evil; normal institutions fail to contend with this threat; a selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptations and carry out the redemptive task; aided by fate, his decisive victory restores the community to its paradisiacal condition; the superhero then recedes into obscurity.
Books based upon interviews with Campbell
- The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on his Life and Work. Edited and with an Introduction by Phil Cousineau. Forward by Stuart L. Brown, Executive Editor. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.
- The Power of Myth (with Bill Moyers and Betty Sue Flowers, ed.), 1988
DVD/Discography
See also
External links
- in Star Wars and The Matrix
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