My Own Hero's Journey

Journey: noun jour·ney \ˈjər-nē\

plural journeys

1 :  an act or instance of traveling from one place to another ; trip

2 chiefly dialect :  a day's travel

3 :  something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another <the journey from youth to maturity> <a journey through time> 

 According to Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey story - a timeless myth that appears in cultures the world over - can be more or less described as follows: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won. The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to restore boons on his fellow man."

(I would argue that that last step is optional - many journey stories are less about "restoring boons" and more about self-discovery.)

Campbell lists stories such as the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and and the story of King Arthur as examples, as well as the tales of Buddha, Moses, and Jesus. Others have (rightfully) named modern day epics such as "Lord of the Rings" or "Star Wars" as being examples. Norse/Teutonic myths (i.e. that of Siegfried) and Dante's Divine Comedy fall under the "monomyth"'s umbrella as well. So do fairy tales like "The Snow Queen" (which is without a doubt my favourite fairy tale of all time).

I would argue that my favourite genre of stories - what I call "Otherworld Stories" or what this website (which I read all the time) calls the "Girls Underground" story - also fits here. Alice Liddell and Dorothy Gale both go on hero's journeys (or heroine's journeys, if you will) through Wonderland and Oz respectively, as do the more modern heroines Sarah Williams (from "Labyrinth") and Coraline Jones (from "Coraline"). In more recent years we have the added examples of "Undertale" and "Over the Garden Wall", which both alter the "self-discovery" theme into that of discovering the will to live (since the former implies the protagonist was trying to kill themselves, and in the latter the protagonists are in literal Purgatory, complete with a guide named Beatrice as an allusion to Dante).

(As someone who has struggled with suicidal tendencies for over a decade, these last two examples are particularly meaningful for me.)

Even road trip movies - such as "Dirty Girl" or "Thelma and Louise" - could be considered examples of the Hero's Journey. The movie "O Brother Where Art Thou" is a road trip movie of the Odyssey, after all. (Incidentally, when I first started planning my move, I originally wanted to drive across the country, until I realised how stupid that would be of me.)

And so the thought I've been dwelling on today is that perhaps I should be considering my big move as my own hero's journey...

Campbell listed certain steps that the archetypal hero takes on their journey:

• The Ordinary World
• The Call to Adventure (Gandalf showing up in the Shire, Alice falling down the rabbit hole, or Gerda realising the Snow Queen has taken Kai) - sometimes the hero refuses the call at first, but ultimately they must accept it, or we wouldn't have a story.
• Meeting with a Mentor/Supernatural Aid (Sarah meeting Hoggle before entering the Labyrinth, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, or Frisk being lead through the ruins by Toriel)
• Crossing the Threshold to the "Special World"/Beginning of Transformation
• Challenges and Temptations/Tests, Allies, and Enemies (Coraline is tempted by the Otherworld, but finds an ally in The Cat)
• The Ordeal/Revelation - often a death and rebirth, either symbolic or literal. (Odysseus visiting the land of the dead, or Wirt and Greg meeting The Beast)
• Transformation/Victory
• The Road Back
• Returning Home Changed or Transformed Somehow

Or, in more general terms - DEPARTURE, INITIATION (in the anthropological sense of the word), and RETURN.

 

Author Sara Avant Stover argues that the steps are slightly different for the Heroine's Journey, that heroines such as Alice or Sarah take:

• Preparing for the Journey (if possible)
• The Descent (Alice and Sarah literally travel underground, as do Persephone and Inanna in their myths, though this could be taken figuratively too.) 
• The Initiation (The death/rebirth stage)
• The Ascent
• Homecoming

And the "Girls Underground" website I linked to earlier lists its own steps for the Girls Underground/Otherworld subgenre as well.

 

"This is my life, not a fairy tale... I have to go to the woods, and I have to meet the wolf, or else my life will never begin." ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

So then if I attempt to look at my own journey through the lens of the "monomyth", where does that leave me?

What step am I at, or will I only know that in hindsight? Do I have a mentor? (My little short story about meeting Sarah Winchester seems to suggest her as a candidate, though that was not consciously intentional when I wrote it.) Or, like Alice Liddell, whom I have always somewhat identified with, am I to go it alone, mentorless and increasingly baffled? Maybe I am to be like Gerda in "The Snow Queen" in that no one person fulfills the role of mentor, but rather there are helpers along the way. (As well as many who are perhaps not so helpful...)

Have I crossed the threshold yet? If I choose to literally see New York as the "Unknown" world, then no, I haven't boarded the plane yet. If I take it more metaphorically, then perhaps, maybe deciding to go was that step.

All I know for sure was my "Call to Adventure" moment - when I was first offered the chance to move there - and that I don't think I've reached the death/rebirth stage yet, because I think that rebirth definitely happens when I move.

And then there's that "return" step...

 

I have to take that one metaphorically, at least somewhat. Because if I take it literally, location-wise I have no desire to move back to California. Besides, I've made it clear that I really consider Sarah herself to be my home. (My Sarah, not Sarah Winchester or Sarah Williams. I understand it does get confusing with how much that name follows me around.) I will be "returning" to her in a sense, I suppose.

 

Of course, if I do take it as a literal return, location-wise, then why does "return" need to be a necessary step at all? If the journey is one of self-discovery, why go back? Yes, sometimes it's necessary. Odysseus needed to return to Penelope. Gerda had to get Kai home. The Beldam was straight up trying to murder Coraline, and it's downright feminist that Sarah Williams refused to let the Goblin King "rule her". But Alice was crowned a queen in her second book - why should she have to go back? 

 

Sometimes, it seems, it's okay not to go back. In the movie, Dorothy Gale declares "there's no place like home!" But in the Oz books, she eventually moves there permanently. Fiona in the webcomic "YU+ME Dream" stays in her other world permanently, too. (Well, kind of. At least until the epilogue.) And maybe that's how it is for me as well. I certainly hope so, if New York is to be my Wonderland.

"It's not where you're coming from, it's where you're going to, and I just want to go with You..."

I'm not really sure what all this is meant to prove, if anything at all. I'm just processing my thoughts, I suppose. But oh, what interesting thoughts they are!

-Nym-