Do you ever feel like you’re reading the same story again and again, with just a few elements changed? Chances are, you have been – and that’s a good thing. Like that moment when you figure out that every song that’s been popular in the past 30 years is just Pachelbel’s Canon in D, learning to recognize the monomyth, or Hero’s Journey story arc, can change the way you read and write. It can even help you figure out “what’s missing” in a story that’s not quite there.
What is the monomyth, anyway?
In 1949, Joseph Campbell proposed the notion that most if not all of the important myths from around the world share a fundamental structure. Borrowing a word from Finnegan’s Wake, because why not, he called that structure the monomyth. More recently, the common term “hero’s journey” has been used to describe this idea, although often the hero in question does not fit the stereotype of a hero.
Campbell was hardly the first to come up with the idea that stories have similar structures and that those structures could be catalogued and genericized; Vladimir Propp suggested the same thing two decades earlier in his Morphology of the Folk Tale.
It’s also important to recognize that, despite Campbell’s insistence, the monomyth structure largely maps to Western – and specifically European and colonized – storytelling tradition. Nonlinear stories or ambiguous ones tend to break this frame. Still, as long as you are willing to acknowledge the shortcomings of the structure, it can be an incredibly useful tool for analysis.
Basically, the monomyth breaks the story arc into three main parts, which are then broken into subparts that are labeled differently depending on which folklorist you’re into.
Elements of the Monomyth
Departure
The important thing to note about the departure is that the hero departs from a situation which, to them, is normal. It may not, however, meet the reader’s definition of normal. Cinderella “departs” from a life of drudgery with her stepmother and stepsisters. Holden Caulfield departs from a normal day at school. Kagome Higurashi falls down a well outside her home. Bilbo Baggins departs from, well, dinner.
Campbell breaks the departure into five stages: 1. The Call to Adventure; 2. Refusal of the Call; 3. Supernatural Aid; 4. Crossing the Threshold; 5. Belly of the Whale. Other folklorists have broken this segment into more or fewer elements.
When you write a departure, remember that you have to include both the “normal” life of your hero and the catalytic event that sets them on their path.
Initiation
Initiation is where the action is. Here your hero will meet the tests that change the path of their life forever. Vasilisa enters Baba Yaga’s hut. Bambi’s mother is shot. Nick Carraway travels to New York. Frodo travels from the Shire to Mordor – on foot, Boromir, because one does simply walk into Mordor, apparently.
But initiation doesn’t stop at the catalytic event. The entire trial/quest/win/reward sequence is covered here. While Campbell broke this sequence into six parts, Christopher Vogler’s four elements are probably more accessible to modern readers: 6. Tests, Allies and Enemies; 7. Approach to the Innermost Cave; 8. The Ordeal; 9. Reward.
Notice, especially, that the reward is contained in this arc. The Holy Grail is found, the wounded knight is healed. The vast majority of the action – right up to the denouement – is included here.
Return
Campbell breaks the return into six parts, all of which could probably be summarized in the name of this arc. Now that your hero has the Goal in hand… now what? Right. Go home. Return triumphant with your object or lesson or physical or mental change. Still, Campbell’s categories are worth examining:
12. Refusal of the Return
Also known as “psych!” or “nuh-unh.” The hero is prevented, somehow, from coming home. Maybe Odysseus is caught in a storm, or Dorothy watches the Wizard sail away without her. However you tell the story, there’s one last obstacle to overcome.
13. The Magic Flight
Not gonna lie, this might be my favorite part of the monomyth. What, you want to steal the magic carpet (or mortar and pestle, or horse)? Do it, hero! So you’re being chased by a pack of cards. So what? You have to get home somehow!
14. Rescue from Without
If I were writing these categories, Rescue from Without would be collapsed into The Magic Flight. These are basically the two ways that the hero overcomes the Refusal of the Return. Either their own ingenuity will be enough… or Glinda the Good will explain how those damn shoes they’ve been carting around for the entire book or movie have the power to send them anywhere they want.
15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
Alice. Wake up. Wake up, Alice. Whether it’s by waking from a dream or crossing through a literal gate in the Shire, there’s an identifiable point in every story where the hero is, officially, home. This is it.
16. Master of Two Worlds / 17. Freedom to Live
Honestly, you’re probably as tired of Campbell’s long-winded system as I am right now, so I’ll actually compress his last two ideas into one: the hero returns home changed by the journey, and lives changedly ever after. Yes, it’s important to the arc of your story to show (as usual, don’t tell) how the hero’s journey has made them a different person either in a material or metaphysical sense.
the journey continues…
So, okay, you’ve been super patient this far while I threw bits and pieces of various stories at you while explaining the monomyth. As a challenge to yourself, why don’t you pick any one of those stories- or a thousand others that I’m sure you can think of – and leave a summary in the comments, noting where the departure, initiation, and return take place in the story? And then, of course… write your own! While 750 words isn’t a lot to cram all these elements into, if you think of books like Peter Rabbit, or any fairy tale, you can see that you don’t need the space of Homer’s Odyssey to tell a monomyth. Or you can use the space you have to focus on one element or arc- set up your hero to leave home, or for a change of pace, talk about what happened after the quest by focusing on the return. You can even collaborate with another writer, or try a serial story so long as each part tells a complete story without requiring the reader to know what came before or after.
Monomyth is so interesting.