The Hero's Journey

[SDLeary]

A short analysis of relevance of The Hero's Journey to Myth

SDLeary

 

[Gray Raven]

This is a good presentation of Campbell's Monomyth theory which is embodied in The Hero's Journey.  It shows that the Monomyth/Hero's Journey can be a seemingly universal pattern; it is not truly a set pattern of stages that all myths and thus a good guide for writing one's own stories.  The presenter does a great job pointing out how Campbell was wrong in proclaiming it was a fixed and universal pattern of all cultural myths.

The elements can be found in many myths and many fantasy stories in popular culture, but the pattern is not fixed in the actual narrative of popular literature.  One can review pop culture stories, such as Lord of the Rings, the First Star Wars film, and the Harry Potter novels, especially the first one, and find all those elements of Campbell's conceptual pattern.  But it is making those stories fit the pattern by conscious selection to make it work.  However, as the lecture points out, when you pull the events to match up with Campbell's system, you have to take the scenes from those stories and pull them into the supposed fixed pattern and stages.  The order of those elements in the story's plot doesn't actually always show up in the order that Campbell proclaimed.

The idea is that the Hero's Journey can be a universal plot line for any fiction as some people try to sell in their books and seminars teaching would-be writers.  

This is clearly incorrect once you think of any genre of literature beyond fantasy stories.

The first Holmes novels, The Study in Scarlet, The Maltese Falcon, and The Big Sleep, to take a few of the most famous detective novels, clearly do not fit the confines of the plot as laid out by Campbell's Hero Journey steps and stages.

If you look at Westerns, Horror fiction, Ghost stories, Spy novels, War novels, and Science Fiction novels, many of them don't actually follow that fixed pattern.  But you can force elements of Campbell's pattern onto those works.  

So, for would-be writers of genre fiction, your first novel might stumble into elements of Campbell's Hero Journey; as the presenter says, if you want to make your mark, don't force yourself into the box that Campbell lays out.  Especially if you are not writing a fantasy novel.