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; funda-
mentally it is inward--into the depths where obscure resistances are overcome,
long lost, forgotten powers are revivified, to be made available for the trans-
figuration of the world….
The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magni-
fication 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 develop-
ment 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 non-existant [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
and some that don’t. In one kind of adventure, the hero starts out responsibly and I 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, white-supremist [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 out-
standing 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.