I would like to preface this post by saying that I do find the hero’s journey interesting, and trying to connect plot points to steps in the journey is a stimulating exercise. Although I tried to be critical in the sense of analysis I ended up mostly being critical in the sense of insults and complaints.
The hero’s journey matches up pretty well with the beginning of Star Wars and Siddhartha, but with how vague the steps are, it would be difficult to write a story which doesn’t. The only way a story could avoid a call to adventure would be diving straight into the middle or having a hero spontaneously decide to go on an adventure. For refusal of the call, any reasonable character would have some reservations about jumping into an adventure (though apparently not Siddhartha, but even though his story fails step two, we still call it a hero’s journey). The supernatural aid is so broadly defined that, again, it is difficult to write a story that doesn’t match up (e.g Siddhartha doesn’t really have a mentor, but since the supernatural aid can be anything that provides guidance, people in class said Gotama, Govinda, and the Samanas all fit the description).
What is the value in analyzing a story through the lens of the monomyth? With these beginning steps, it seems as if you can put literally any story on a timeline and slap these labels on each event. As an example, take Jack and the Beanstalk. The first few events are: Jack is asked to sell the cow, the magic beans get thrown away, the magic beans sprout into a beanstalk, and Jack climbs the beanstalk. This matches up with the hero’s journey just as well as Star Wars or Siddhartha. I understand that the point of the hero’s journey is that it is a common pattern, but once a pattern becomes so all encompassing it loses its significance. Trying to cram full novels and short fairy tales into the same pattern leads to oversimplifications and ignores key details.
Beyond these first 6 steps, there seems to be the opposite problem. Rather than the steps being so wide-reaching that they are impossible to avoid, the steps become so specific that, at least for the stories we’ve looked at, any connections are forced. Taking an honest look at Star Wars, the connection to the hero’s journey after the road of trials is questionable, and after the ultimate boon, it completely falls apart. In Siddhartha, the story completely ends at the ultimate boon. While the hero’s journey can help us understand the roles that individual events play in an overall narrative, it provides only one view, and that view is often limiting.
This is not to say that the hero’s journey is useless. One big value of the hero’s journey is in seeing how stories differ from it. Noticing and acknowledging where stories diverge from this generic framework can help to identify elements worth analyzing. Another value of the hero’s journey is that it facilitates making connections between stories. By dividing different stories into the same 17 steps we can focus on comparing two segments which have some baseline level of similarity. A final value of the hero’s journey is that it gives me something to complain about; I love to complain.
Hello Zev, I agree with the issue that the hero's journey doesn't fit well with the narrative of Siddhartha, both with the issue of the mentor and with the later steps. But in my opinion, the steps of the hero's journey are more meant as a means to start, progress, and end the story. Take the first few steps, presumably the hero will have to have a reason to leave his comfort zone, and presumably he will need some sort of aid to help him in this new world. And for the later steps, While the wordings of the steps were written very specifically, I think that the idea of a hero having a moment of realization that changes how they think and that they return with a reward are a more general way to analyze texts in the context of the hero's journey.
ReplyDeleteYour points here make a lot of sense to me. Campbell made a lot of very strange decisions in which stages of a narrative to include and which to exclude; it results in a framework that often fits somewhat awkwardly with analyzed narratives. I especially agree with the idea that the ending is too granular- endings will differ with every character, so surely a broader structure would be more applicable.
ReplyDeleteHi Zev, I think there is a misconception when it comes to the monomyth that a lot of people have. The monomyth isn't something to follow to a tee, it's really just an analysis of mythology and biblical stories compiled into a basic sort of theme that all should follow. It's not about hitting every point because when I did things on StarWars and Siddartha trying to connect points was simply impossible without reworking a crucial point. It's simply just a flow it should follow it's not law. But it works as almost every story and movie that fits the genre I can tie to this monomyth. It's not about applicability more so just the theme to follow, you also can't follow a theme that doesn't pertain to the time your story takes place in. Hence why both the stories we read don't really fit the monomyth as one would initially think.
ReplyDeleteAlso my eyes are now dying as I had to stare at this screen for 10 minutes straight.
DeleteGreat post! I agree that the hero's journey template is strangely both too specific and not specific enough. I also agree that it's useful for comparing stories, and it could also be a useful go-off for creative writing. I would say that even a hero spontaneously going on an adventure could still work as a call to adventure though, given how sudden Siddhartha's departure seemed. I think every step of the hero's journey, even the more specific ones, could overlayed onto basically any story, even if it is slightly awkward.
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