MYTH, THE HERO JOURNEY, AND YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
The definition of myth no longer fits the simplistic explanation taught millions of
school children, that myth is a "made-up story about gods, goddesses, and supernatural
beings." [citation] Myth can no longer be accepted only as a falsehood, an untruth, or the
remnant of primitive society, something in which a modern, educated person no longer
believes. [citation] Myth [should more properly be viewed as] has become--or perhaps
always has been--an essential element in man's attempt to discover his identity and his
place in society. This "new" concept [which incorporates the ideas of Rollo May and
Joseph Campbell--<I’m guessing>] expands the usual [simple] dictionary definitions of
myth, resulting in an integrated view of an ancient story form and modern day existence.
Good conclusion to this paragraph.
If myth is not just a story, then, what is it? Rollo May, in The Cry for Myth,
defines myth as "a story of making sense of a senseless world. Myths are narrative
patterns that give significance to our existence" (15). Joseph Campbell also views myth
from this viewpoint of personal importance:
… Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for
significance. We also need to tell our story and understand our story….We all
need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to
find out who we are….Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human
life (4).
Within this framework of myth is the concept of the archetypal character or image.
These characters and motifs function to link
Essential to the archetypal concept of myth is the journey of the hero adventurer.
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell describes a hero:
The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past
his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human
forms. Such a one's visions, ideas, and inspirations come pristine from the
primary springs of human life and thought. Hence, they are eloquent, not of the
present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through
which society is reborn. His second solemn task and deed (as Toynbee declares
and as all the mythologies of mankind indicate) is to return then to us,
transfigured, and teach to lesson he has learned of life renewed (20).
This mythic hero-adventurer has a long literary tradition, travelling endless realms in his
journey of discovery, often sacrificing himself for some greater good. According to
Campbell in his series of interviews with Bill Moyers,
The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has
been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experence [sic]
available or permitted to the members of his society. This person then takes off
on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to uncover what has been
lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a going and a
returning (123).
Campbell further describes the journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
…This passage of the mythological hero may be overground, incidentally; fundamentally it is inward--into the depths where obscure resistances are overcome,
long lost, forgotten powers are revivified, to be made available for the transfiguration of the world….
The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation--initiation-return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth. A hero ventures
forth from the world of the 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 power to bestow boons of his
fellow man. (29)
This hero-adventurer has become a standard character in young adult realistic novels.
The young adult years, usually considered to span the ages between eleven to
eighteen, are characterized by rapid physical growth and change, emotional upheaval, a
search for self-identity, and the struggle for independence from family. The literature for
this age group reflects these characteristics. According to Maia Pank Mertz and David A.
England, adolescent fiction has ten salient characteristics:
1. Adolescent fiction will involve a youthful protagonist.
2. Adolescent fiction often employs a point of view which presents the
adolescent's interpretation of the events of the story.
3. Adolescent fiction is characterized by directness of exposition,
dialogue, and direct confrontation between principal characters.
4. Adolescent fiction is characterized by structural conventions.
5. Main characters in adolescent fiction are highly independent in thought,
action, and conflict resolution.
6. Adolescents are depicted as reaping the consequences of their actions and
decisions.
7. Adolescent fiction will draw upon the author's sense of adolescent development and the concomitant attention to the legitimate concerns of adolescents.
8. Adolescent fiction strives for relevance by attempting to mirror current societal
attitudes and issues.
9. Adolescent fiction most often includes gradual, incremental, and ultimately
incomplete "growth in awareness" on the part of the central character.
10. Adolescent fiction is, finally, hopeful. (120)
The concept of the young adult hero-adventurer finds support in several of these points
defining young adult fiction. Similarly to myth, the young adult novel is most relevant in
its societal context. As is typical with many myths, parental or adult figures are nonexistant [sic] or ineffectual. And in the footsteps of the traditional hero-adventurer, the
modern young adult hero navigates through a series of personal challenges.
Campbell describes this journey "not as a courageous act, but as a life lived in self
discovery (xiv). Both the young adult hero and the traditional hero-adventurer are
usually youthful, at least at the initiation of the journey. Both directly confront the
problem or the enemy, are highly independent, and reap the consequences of their actions
and decisions. As a result of their journey, both gain self-awareness and end their quest
with a sense of satisfaction and hope.
In the typical young adult novel, the young hero-adventurer begins his or her
adventure with no intention of, or plan for, becoming a hero. Campbell states:
There are both kinds of heroes, some that choose to undertake the journey
I
and some that don’t. In one kind of adventure, the hero starts out responsibly and
intentionally to perform the deed….That is the adventure of finding out what your
career is, what your nature is, what your source is. You undertake that
intentionally….
Then there are adventures into which you are thrown--for example, being
drafted into the army. You didn't intend it, but you're in now. You've undergone
a death and a resurrection, you've put on a uniform, and you're another creature.
(129)
The young adult hero-adventurer, as a modern example of the mythic character,
demonstrates that these mythical motifs and themes are the same, whether ancient or
modern because myth, according to Campbell, is "the story of human suffering, striving,
living--and youth coming to knowledge of self, what it has to go through" (5).
Chris Craven in Julian Thompson's novel Brothers portrays this unintentional
hero who has nonetheless chosen to undertake a journey. [“chosen” or been chosen?]
When his brother Cam disappears from a mental sanitarium, Chris decides to search for
him, hoping to discover reasons for the illness and the disappearance.
It would have been okay with me--quite excellent in fact--if Mom and I
had not again discussed my plan to look for Cam.
For one thing, "plan" does my idea a favor. I didn't have a plan other
than to go to the last place my brother had been, this Gramercy Manor, and pick
up all the information I could get about his stay and departure.
Because I didn't want to waste time being sensible or logical, I chose not
to concern myself with the fact that the people who I imagined supplying me this
information would have acted on it long ago….No, I just decided my perspective
on my brother's unique style would allow me to interpret their stale facts and
reach conclusions they'd been much too limited to see.
Or maybe I would just get lucky. (Thompson 7) [Lucky suggests the
colloquial term—perhaps even an invocation—for the encounter with myth or with the
sacred.]
With the help of Michelle, Cam's friend from the sanitarium, and Millie, her sister, who
accompany him, Chris begins the journey westward across the northern United States,
hoping to find Chris.
The three locate Chris at the compound of a group of anti-government, whitesupremist [supremacist] militiamen called the Sons of Libertky 2 [Libertky?] where he is
considered a harmless eccentric. The SOL2 invite the three to stay and visit Chris, know
their presence would allow for hostages in the compound is attack by government agents.
?? Something missing here??
When the attack occurs, both Chris and Cam are wounded and the girls are imprisoned.
Despite his gunshot wound, Chris rescues Cam and the girls and enables the government
agents to arrest the militiamen.
Both the rescue squadders were really nice, and the lady in the back
seemed impressed by what she'd been told about "the escape," and the part
I'd played in it.
Typically, my brother had to gild the lily, telling her I'd been outstanding all my life.
"He's a brother in a million," he insisted. "Really smart--and he drove
all the way out here to see me, and once he got the girls in the car, he came back
and carried me out of Art's house when I was, like completely out of it, I guess.
He got me out of a very bad situation back there." (93)
Chris sets out intentionally to find his brother; not only does he find him, but he,
unintentionally, is thrown into the mold of the hero-adventurer. In the process, he
discovers himself and finds direction in his life.
Chris chooses to undertake his journey, but Mark Severson in Carter Alden's
Between a Rock and a Hard Place has the journey thrust upon him. In Mark's family,
tradition expects each male family member, when he reaches the age of fifteen, to travel
through the Boundary Waters, a series of lakes connected by narrow portages, canoeing
and camping the entire trip. Mark is unenthused about the whole idea, especially since
his companion will be his cousin Randy whom he does not particularly like.
Uncle Jerry looked up from where he was messing with our packs on the
far side of the campfire. "You bet, big brother, I'd trade a lot to be fifteen and
doing it again." Well, don't let a few decades stop you, I thought. Shove off in the
morning. Randy and I will be just fine hanging out at that cushy resort, drinking
your beer, and rodding around ol' Can't Hook in your motorboat. Go have a blast.
(2)
Randy, who is diabetic, is also an unwilling, unenthusiastic participant in the trek,
although he does see it as a break from his the constant, overprotective restraints his
mother puts on him because of his diabetes. Initially, the two boys have difficulties
getting along, but they eventually work out an uneasy truce. When a bear manages to
shake their food supply form the supposed safety of a line strung between two trees and
eat most of it, they begin to have severe problems. Randy must have an adequate amount
of food in order to keep his diabetes under control, and the bear leaves them enough food
for less than one day. Compounding the problem, Randy's glucometer, necessary to
check his blood sugar level, has been damaged in the bear attack. Despite their best
efforts, the two cannot reach the resort where their dads are staying quickly enough, and
Randy's condition becomes serious. When he slips into a diabetic coma, Mark makes the
difficult decision to leave his unconscious cousin in the woods and cut across land to find
help. In the process, he breaks his collarbone and loses his boots, necessitating walking
the last five miles barefoot through the woods.
It was done and I let myself slide slowly down the trunk of the tree and
closed my eyes. I heard footsteps and Donner's soft laugh. "Well, he made it all
the way back. You've got one hell of a boy there, Ed."
"I know it," said Dad, and I felt his strong arms lift me. (205)
Despite great physical pain, Mark has managed to save his cousin. Both Mark
and Randy have discovered reserves in themselves they did not know they had and both
have come to terms with difficult parts of their lives. Like the mythic hero-adventurer,
both boys have emerged from their ordeal as different "creatures;" they are ready to travel
onward with a new sense of direction for their lives.
Following even more closely the mythic heroic journey motif where the hero
ventures into dark regions of the unknown, often into the underworld, Neil in Joyce
Sweeney's Free Fall, finds himself, his brother, and their two friends lost in an
underground cave. With Neil as the acknowledged leader, the group must overcome
individual demons and work together in order to save themselves. Campbell describes
this type of journey: "The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil
of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to
deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage, the danger fades"
(Hero, 82). The four boys decide to explore a cave, but become lost in the maze of
tunnels and passages. Facing the possibility of their own deaths, each boy must come to
terms with their own demons: Neil and his younger brother David, guilt over the death of
their younger sister in a house fire and the distance the tragedy has placed between them;
Randy, the abandonment of his father for a new wife and family and the economic
hardships he faces with his mother and sisters; Terry, an abusive adoptive father. Within
the depths of the cave, in the darkness of the night, each of the four find themselves able
to reveal their secret selves to the others in a cathartic experience. When Neil fails in his
attempt to scale the walls of the cave to an opening and severely injures himself, the
safety of the four falls on David and his ability to swim out of the cave through an
underground passage.
Neil forced himself to calm down. "I'm crippled, Terry. Don't be scared
of me. But Jesus, you can be exasperating sometimes."
"I know." He bowed his head, forelock dipping.
"Look, don't feel bad. We're all scared. You're just the one who says it."
"I know."
They say quietly for a second, watching the water as if it might offer up
clues. "David's really brave," Terry said.
"Yes, he is," Neil said.
"He's like…a hero," Terry said.
"Yes." Neil's throat closed unexpectedly. He turned his face away just in
case.
"I'm sorry!" Terry said. "What did I say?"
Neil shook his head. "I don't know." He turned back to the water,
struggling with himself. "I guess I wanted to be the hero."
After a second, he felt a little pat on the arm. "But David needed it,"
Terry said.
Neil nodded. He couldn't speak for a second. Then he said, in a choked
voice. "He's a good brother. A good person. He doesn't really know how good
he is." (219)
The four travel into the depths of their personal hells and emerge with decisive victories
over their personal demons. For them, the danger has faded.
Campbell further categorizes the hero by two types of deed. "One is the physical
deed, in which the hero performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life. The other
kind is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the supernormal range of
spiritual life and them [then] comes back with a message" (Power 123). Sorry Rinamu in
Theodore Taylor's The Bomb is one example of a hero performing a courageous act as a
hero-adventurer. While in this case, the hero is unsuccessful in his attempt to save his
island from destruction, he nevertheless performs a physical heroic act. In 1946, the
United States government chose Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean for tests of the atomic
bomb. Inhabitants of the island were promised relocation to a new isle that would be as
hospitable as Bikini and that "some day, probably two or three years," they would be
allowed to return to their homes. When Sorry learns from his Uncle Abram that the U.S.
government is lying, the two attempt to stop the testing. They first try, unsuccessfully,
try to convince the islanders of the government's deception. When this fails, the two
[they] devise a plan which they hope will save the island. But Uncle Abram dies of heart
disease and Sorry must carry on alone.
He'd thought of little except the bomb drop over the last few weeks. He'd
gone over and over it in his mind--when to sail, how far away to be when the
bomber flew over. He was confident they'd see him down there, a splash of vivid
red against the blue sea. The newsmen would tell the world about it instantly; the
navy would postpone the test. Then the navy would find another place for the
tests and everyone could go back to Bikini. There'd be no radiation poison falling
on it. It would work, Sorry was convinced, and it was all Abram's idea. (161)
With his grandfather and Abram's girlfriend Tara, Sorry sets sail in the red boat for Bikini
Atoll. Sorry's plan [to] sail his boat within six miles of the bombsite, [and] his plan to
save his island, fails, and the three die. Even before the attempt, Sorry admits that
"beneath all his hero talk were doubts and fears" (170). Just before the bomb falls, he
realizes the insanity of the plan, but it is too late to turn back. The heroic act is no more
than an empty gesture, a futile act, but Sorry's heroism cannot be denied.
[An empty gesture is not the same as a futile act. Sorry’s gesture is heroic but
futile—which may suggest a practical view of heroism.]
The spiritual deed of heroism [awkward—you need another term for this,
although I am not sure what it is. ‘interior’ heroism? ‘purely interior heroism’?] is less
prevalent in young adult literature, but does occur. Martha Brooks' Bone Dance, with its
"supernormal range of spiritual life," provides an example of this type of heroism.
Alexandra is surprised and somewhat resentful when the father she has never really
known dies and leaves her a cabin and a plot of land. While trying to decide what to do
about her inheritance, she begins to dream of her grandfather who has [also] recently
died. In these dreams, her grandfather is usually accompanied by an old Indian man that
Alexandra names Raven Man and who seems to direct her to see the world and to see her
soul, to journey inward.
…And then she knows, even as she is dreaming, that she is the one who is
running away. Running and running. "Stop!" cries the raven, flying at her
back. Turn around and face the mystery" (63).
Alexandra decides to journey alone to the cabin, to face her own ghosts.
Lonny's story parallels Alexandra's story, Lonny, who has his own ghosts. [run on
sentence—make into two sentences.] He believes he is responsible for his mother's fatal
heart attack when he was eleven. Two days before she died, he and his friend dug up an
Indian burial ground and the skeleton of a small child. He knows she would have
disapproved and is sure that his "crime" caused her death. Lonny is also upset because
Earl, Alexandra's dad, [‘dad?’ why not father? You didn’t say ‘mom’ above.] left the
land, which includes the Indian burial ground, to a stranger.
Earl's death shook him. The dreams began full force again, but different
this time. Always it was his mother, coming to him again and again in his
dreams. She became less human and more spirit. She'd land delicately at the side
of his face as if she were the north wind. She would whisper, "Let the spirits
dance. The land will wake up and tell you things. (52)
Despite Lonny's resentment of Alexandra, [whom he considers] an "unappreciative city
girl," inheriting the land, he is forced to escort her to the isolated cabin and provide water
and supplies for her stay. He also is ashamed to tell her that he still has her father's last
letter to her, [which] the letter Earl [had] asked him to mail a few days before his death.
While staying at the cabin, Alexandra continues to dream of her grandfather and the
Raven man, [Raven Man?] feeling that they are leading her as she [to] explore the land
she has inherited. Lonny follows her and watches as she sits alone in her grief. He joins
her and confesses his "guilt" in his mother's death. [Emphasize the causal relationship
here: Alexandra’s grief moves Lonny to join her and confess his feelings of guilt and
complicity in his mother’s death.] As they sit quietly together, lost in their own thoughts,
She closed her eyes. Behind her lids she watched as Grandpa moved in
front of Lonny. Gazed long and tenderly into his eyes. Place a silvery hand, like
a blessing over his heart.
Then the old men came together again, joining arms, dancing around
them, around Medicine Bluff, rhythmically nodding their heads….
She could feel all around her, for the briefest of moments, a vast moving
blanket tossing stars out into the cosmos. And a little part of her was flying out,
too, but it wasn't ever her….(141)
Lonny also sees his own ghosts: "With a fierce and inescapable light, his own ghost
hovered in front of his imagination" (141).
Alexandra returns from the clearing, "dazzled, cleaned out in spirit" (142). When
Lonny brings her