The hero's journey is about the fact that we reach various points in our lives where the world tells us that we need to change. It is supposed to serve as inspiration. Staying the same results in bitterness and misery. However, breaking down an old identity is painful. Some people stick with the same strategy/identity that they formed as a child for their entire lives, despite massive consequences.
The story of Rama follows the Hero’s arc as Campbell wrote. In fact the arc is traced twice in Ramayana (literally- the travels of Rama). Rama is born as a prince, as a teenager leaves home with his teacher, learns the art of archery, kills a demon, marries Sita and returns. The wider travel starts later when his stepmother condemns Rama to the forest. Here his wife is abducted by king of demons - Ravana. Rama befriends and creates an army of monkeys and bears, defeats Ravana and returns victorious with his wife.
The thing about the hero's journey is not that it's the only way to tell a story.
It's ancient and it is a possible explanation of the power of myth.
What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be Rama or Achilles? What does it mean to be a part of your group and not just the background noise?
How do you organize your consciousness of self to comprehend the world around you?
People used story before there were numbers. (People used physical art but whether that's earlier or simultaneously someone smarter than me will have to say.)
In a world flooded with narrative where entertainment is the only purpose and understanding is supposed to be a thing of numbers rather than story, Campbell doesn't resonate.
Probably because too many of us consume story like dessert instead of participate like baking bread.
Myth (and I may be misremembering Campbell) is a vocabulary deeper than words as words. Phrases become shorthand for an emotion/image that your subconscious story brain uses to understand the world.
The hero's journey isn't the only pattern. There's also the prophet ignored and the foolish parent.
Screens may be our modern metaphor. It's there between us and understanding, it gives us a glimpse of what is there, but it may also be Plato's shadows on the wall. Information through screens is real but is understanding within?
Or are we interpreting shadows while refusing to walk out of the cave?
The stories where villains are the heroes excite us. But if story is necessary for human beings is it participatory? Do we need to be the villain in our own lives? Or do we need to be told that no matter what you do it ends badly? Do we need to believe that no good deed goes unpunished?
A lot of genre fiction writing for a long time was taught that there was a formula. A formula and not a pattern.
(A lot of more serious fiction was also following a formula without calling it that but that's a different rant.)
But formula becomes repetitive and then stale. You can read it without engaging.
We go through the motions of story without being in the story. I think it's why gaming is engaging. It's participating IN the story.
It's story manifest.
Campbell wasn't talking about how to write. He was suggesting an emotional vocabulary we could all understand. Given his age and upbringing, male and martial was not just his subconscious vocabulary but one that resonated with a guy in a NY bar and an Indian born economist.
Story still works at a deeper level but the well has been poisoned or stagnant. Villainy is new, sharp, engaging.
It's vinegar instead of treacle.
Campbell didn't see that coming.
The person or persons who understand how to flush it out will be our new Campbell. Maybe our new Homer. Not by tossing bleach into a stagnant pond but by routing glacier springs through it.
Yes, Campbell is right. Whether ancient or modern, male or female, Western or Eastern, we all follow the hero's journey. It is called life: childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, and death.
Might be that Campbell was right in some overall sense, but wrong in many details. The last paragraph of this piece sort of gets at that. There might be universal themes - biological needs and fears that need to be addressed and looking for hero-saviors makes sense. Avatars and political leaders for example. Jung gets at this with collective unconsciousness, but also allows for personal/individualized, and maybe even cultural, expression. Whether these have universal elements might be where the debate lies.
The heroes to me are the moms, dads, sisters, brothers, friends and those who care, that learn to care for themselves and lift others, one by one so as to enable a functioning society.
My impression was always that the hero’s journey was universal, not that it was the ONLY myth/pattern. The arguments presented are criticizing a non existent claim.
I think Northrop Frye’s take on the difference between metaphor and metonymy in myths as narrative is a good place to examine Campbell’s work. Frye comes at it from a place of language as code—its function shapes the world much like LLMs or AI—whilst Campbell tackles language as psychic phenomenon (an extension or mapping of the mind). The distinction between folktales, legends, parables, fables, and allegories is as distinct as that of argument (metonymic) and narrative (descriptive). One would need to pry open why narrative exists at all; what is the difference between Homer and Joyce or Socrates and Plato (namely, oral vs written); and why it took humans (as Homo Sapiens) until 3300 BCE to invent a written system? These important questions may reveal the medium and message. Or not.
Here is a mono-reality for us all - we all die, everyone of us. That is not a myth, that is empirical fact.
Campbell merely pointed out that this concept is universal in all cultures and the what of the journey is the process he documents. I agree with Ernest Becker, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche and Erich Fromm on the why of this pursuit, namely that humans do pursue the hero's journey and the reason we do so is our universal fear of our own mortality.
The stanza in Vishnusahasranama “ where God Ishwara answers Goddess Parvathi with love , that for those of the common folks who find it difficult , can just chant Rama Mantra will attain the same benefits “ reverberates and by depicting Shri Ram and relating the threads you have brought in the essence of how what is governance and acceptance and respect for others and recognitions of the same omnipresence concept. Thank you .🙏
Not all major western stories are the isolating, sacrificing hero's journey - Gail Carriger lays out very well in her book the Heronie's Journey (https://gailcarriger.com/books/hj/) that protagonists who gather community are the opposite of the go-it-alone tragic Campbell style hero. Regardless of the gender of the protagonist, they are different stories to be sure. Harry Potter is a heroine's journey and the modern Wonder Woman movie is a hero's journey. It's community vs. solo, building skills rather than slaying the dragon. Check it out, it's really interesting.
The hero's journey is about the fact that we reach various points in our lives where the world tells us that we need to change. It is supposed to serve as inspiration. Staying the same results in bitterness and misery. However, breaking down an old identity is painful. Some people stick with the same strategy/identity that they formed as a child for their entire lives, despite massive consequences.
The story of Rama follows the Hero’s arc as Campbell wrote. In fact the arc is traced twice in Ramayana (literally- the travels of Rama). Rama is born as a prince, as a teenager leaves home with his teacher, learns the art of archery, kills a demon, marries Sita and returns. The wider travel starts later when his stepmother condemns Rama to the forest. Here his wife is abducted by king of demons - Ravana. Rama befriends and creates an army of monkeys and bears, defeats Ravana and returns victorious with his wife.
Well duh. Campbell was inspired by Ramayana and similar works. The essay argues that not all cultures/epics follow that pattern.
The thing about the hero's journey is not that it's the only way to tell a story.
It's ancient and it is a possible explanation of the power of myth.
What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be Rama or Achilles? What does it mean to be a part of your group and not just the background noise?
How do you organize your consciousness of self to comprehend the world around you?
People used story before there were numbers. (People used physical art but whether that's earlier or simultaneously someone smarter than me will have to say.)
In a world flooded with narrative where entertainment is the only purpose and understanding is supposed to be a thing of numbers rather than story, Campbell doesn't resonate.
Probably because too many of us consume story like dessert instead of participate like baking bread.
Myth (and I may be misremembering Campbell) is a vocabulary deeper than words as words. Phrases become shorthand for an emotion/image that your subconscious story brain uses to understand the world.
The hero's journey isn't the only pattern. There's also the prophet ignored and the foolish parent.
Screens may be our modern metaphor. It's there between us and understanding, it gives us a glimpse of what is there, but it may also be Plato's shadows on the wall. Information through screens is real but is understanding within?
Or are we interpreting shadows while refusing to walk out of the cave?
The stories where villains are the heroes excite us. But if story is necessary for human beings is it participatory? Do we need to be the villain in our own lives? Or do we need to be told that no matter what you do it ends badly? Do we need to believe that no good deed goes unpunished?
A lot of genre fiction writing for a long time was taught that there was a formula. A formula and not a pattern.
(A lot of more serious fiction was also following a formula without calling it that but that's a different rant.)
But formula becomes repetitive and then stale. You can read it without engaging.
We go through the motions of story without being in the story. I think it's why gaming is engaging. It's participating IN the story.
It's story manifest.
Campbell wasn't talking about how to write. He was suggesting an emotional vocabulary we could all understand. Given his age and upbringing, male and martial was not just his subconscious vocabulary but one that resonated with a guy in a NY bar and an Indian born economist.
Story still works at a deeper level but the well has been poisoned or stagnant. Villainy is new, sharp, engaging.
It's vinegar instead of treacle.
Campbell didn't see that coming.
The person or persons who understand how to flush it out will be our new Campbell. Maybe our new Homer. Not by tossing bleach into a stagnant pond but by routing glacier springs through it.
Yes, Campbell is right. Whether ancient or modern, male or female, Western or Eastern, we all follow the hero's journey. It is called life: childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, and death.
A coming-of-age story is also a hero's journey.
Might be that Campbell was right in some overall sense, but wrong in many details. The last paragraph of this piece sort of gets at that. There might be universal themes - biological needs and fears that need to be addressed and looking for hero-saviors makes sense. Avatars and political leaders for example. Jung gets at this with collective unconsciousness, but also allows for personal/individualized, and maybe even cultural, expression. Whether these have universal elements might be where the debate lies.
The heroes to me are the moms, dads, sisters, brothers, friends and those who care, that learn to care for themselves and lift others, one by one so as to enable a functioning society.
My impression was always that the hero’s journey was universal, not that it was the ONLY myth/pattern. The arguments presented are criticizing a non existent claim.
I think Northrop Frye’s take on the difference between metaphor and metonymy in myths as narrative is a good place to examine Campbell’s work. Frye comes at it from a place of language as code—its function shapes the world much like LLMs or AI—whilst Campbell tackles language as psychic phenomenon (an extension or mapping of the mind). The distinction between folktales, legends, parables, fables, and allegories is as distinct as that of argument (metonymic) and narrative (descriptive). One would need to pry open why narrative exists at all; what is the difference between Homer and Joyce or Socrates and Plato (namely, oral vs written); and why it took humans (as Homo Sapiens) until 3300 BCE to invent a written system? These important questions may reveal the medium and message. Or not.
I was totally expecting you to bring up Maureen Murdock’s work on the female mythic cycle as an alternate to Campbell’s schema, but you didn’t.
In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised?
Would love to see the Big Think tackle it.
https://maureenmurdock.com/articles/articles-the-heroines-journey/
Excellent article. Agree on all points.
Here is a mono-reality for us all - we all die, everyone of us. That is not a myth, that is empirical fact.
Campbell merely pointed out that this concept is universal in all cultures and the what of the journey is the process he documents. I agree with Ernest Becker, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche and Erich Fromm on the why of this pursuit, namely that humans do pursue the hero's journey and the reason we do so is our universal fear of our own mortality.
https://medium.com/@jylterps/the-heros-journey-on-the-road-to-death-c57f08b491e3
Our point of view: https://kaitsa.substack.com/p/your-heros-journey-toolkit-is-missing
True.
The stanza in Vishnusahasranama “ where God Ishwara answers Goddess Parvathi with love , that for those of the common folks who find it difficult , can just chant Rama Mantra will attain the same benefits “ reverberates and by depicting Shri Ram and relating the threads you have brought in the essence of how what is governance and acceptance and respect for others and recognitions of the same omnipresence concept. Thank you .🙏
Not all major western stories are the isolating, sacrificing hero's journey - Gail Carriger lays out very well in her book the Heronie's Journey (https://gailcarriger.com/books/hj/) that protagonists who gather community are the opposite of the go-it-alone tragic Campbell style hero. Regardless of the gender of the protagonist, they are different stories to be sure. Harry Potter is a heroine's journey and the modern Wonder Woman movie is a hero's journey. It's community vs. solo, building skills rather than slaying the dragon. Check it out, it's really interesting.
Campbell in turn may have been inspired by Edward Casaubon.