My “Hero’s Journey” Is Not Campbell’s

There was a panel at Norwescon on the Hero’s Journey. Fun panel. One person in the audience asked about the “Heroine’s Journey”, the book by one of Joseph Campbell’s students, Maureen Murdock. She felt that Campbell had ignored women’s specific spiritual journey. And the lady (I believe) who ask about it felt I was being dismissive in not speaking about it, or reading the book. My reaction was simple: I’d watched an interview with her, and seen descriptions of the pattern she proposed.

The trick is that I didn’t just dive into Campbell’s pattern either. It seemed to me that he was accurate in evaluating a vast number of popular myths, and HAD looked at them from around the world (while specializing in European forms) and probably more of them WERE dealing with male protagonists and were told by male bards and griots.

I went in a slightly different direction: I asked myself about the relationship between mythology as Campbell had described it, and the universal experience of human life. This lead to the pattern I’ve studied, taught, and applied for thirty years:

1. Character confronted with a challenge
2. Initially they reject the challenge (fear)
3. Accept the challenge
4. Road of Trials
5. Gaining allies and powers
6. Confront evil-fail
7. Dark Night of the Soul
8. Leap of Faith
9. Confront evil — win