Joseph Cambell's Monomyth

Reading Update

    In my Reading Fiction course, my professor started class by saying he was going to change some of our lives that day. 

Simultaneously, he was going to ruin every movie, book, and basically story telling for us. 

He did this by showing us Joseph Cambell's Monomyth concept. 

I have a huge interest in writing as well as reading, as they kind of go hand-in-hand and I found this very interesting for not only a readers perspective but a writers. The monomyth is the idea that every hero's story can be broken down into these 12 different stages and has 8 different archetypes.

    In this installment, I want to breakdown these steps, and in later posts, I'll use this to breakdown the different books I read and talk about on this blog.

    I'm going to start with the 12 different stages.                            

1. Ordinary World - This is usually the environment/ lifestyle the hero exists in when the story starts.

2. Call to Adventure - The problem is presented to hero, who is the only one who can stop it

3. Refusal of the Call - Denial of responsibility, the hero doesn't believe they can stop/solve the problem.

 

4. Meeting the Mentor - The Mentor is the one to gives the hero what they need to know to succeed.

5. Crossing the Threshold - often the same person as the mentor, they accept the hero as worthy of the journey/trust/responsibility.   

                                                       
6. Test, Allies, Enemies- Hero meets friends, enemies and has a test of some sort.

7. Approach the Inmost Cave - This is something the hero goes into that changes them, they "exit the cave" a different person, with a different motive or perspective and surprisingly often they do leave an actual cave, hence the name of this step.

8. Ordeal - This is the fight for all the marbles, the climax, the final battle, the last heist, what have you.

9. Reward- This is the peace, or the crown, or even the spouse they want set out to get.

10. The Road Back- usually skimmed over, but the return home, back to the place they started. 

11. The Resurrection- The hero sees how much they've changed and how they are going to proceed. 

12. Return- The hero can't fall back into life how it was before their journey. 

The 8 different Archetypes are:

1. Hero

2. Mentor

3. Threshold Guardian

4. Herald 

5. Shapeshifter

6. Shadow

7. Trickster

8. Allies

    Now, this structure works for hero stories, and don't have to happen in any particular order and one character or object and serve as multiple archetypes. 

I am wondering about other stories, as not all stories are hero quests and journeys, and I founded the basic:

Man vs. Man

Man vs. Nature

Man vs. Society

Man vs. Self

This are very simplistic, for example the hero joinery might have all of these plots going at different points in the story. I think these are good things to keep in mind to make your story deeper. 

:)