Monomyths [Tuesday, March 30, Period 3]
"Welcome to Act Three," Cindy said from the edge of her desk, just after the bell finished ringing. "We're closing in towards the end of the heroic journeys--just like we're closing in on the end of the semester. We've got three more classes and then the final, so if you haven't started on it yet, you really ought to. Long television series is long."
Brief internet witticism aside, Cindy was ready to be all business. "So, in this Act, we find out if the hero lives or dies, succeeds or fails. Which is fairly interesting because when we last discussed our heroes, one was dead and the other was facing trials. Don't worry about the dead thing; with most heroes, they get better."
Apparently, Cindy thought she was funny this morning.
"For the hero on the feminine journey, Act Three starts with Stage Seven, Support. This may seem odd, since this entire time, we've been talking about the hero finding the strength inside herself to go on, but the idea of support is absolutely integral for the hero on the feminine journey--mostly because she has gone so long without it. We've discussed that, in the beginning, the hero often doesn't have the support of society when she sets out. She is turning her back on what is established and making her own way. When she is dealing with a so-called 'friendly' society, it's the kind of support that tried to take away her actualization and self-control. In short, the support we see in Stage Five, for example, is the equivalent of telling her to sit here like a good girl and let everyone else take care of things, because she can't. It looks like help, but really, it's another show of dominance. The support given in Stage Seven is different. It isn't people coming in to save the day in her stead; it's often people or animals who the hero has helped on her way, who come to stand with her and throw their lot in with hers to prove that they trust and believe in her. Whether we're looking at The Wizard of Oz or any fairy tale ever where the youngest daughter is kind to animals, this trope is in evidence. Many of you brought this up in your own essays: that, at your darkest moments, there were others there to help bring you out."
"Just because the hero has power and strength within, it doesn't mean that she has to stand alone or suddenly be magically good at everything. She is still the same person that she was, only with a newfound understanding of just who or what that person is. She has to learn that there is a difference between asking for and accepting help and letting someone else do everything for her. Even if, in the story, there is no one else physically present, she may have set up the assistance before hand (setting out tools or information for her future use) or be aided and comforted by her own beliefs or something of that kind."
"In fact, it's when this support is absent that she fails, like in The Epiphany, where Edith commits suicide because there's no one there to support her. The feminine journey includes the relation between the individual and the group. No one can force her to do something or become something different or try to take away who she is essentially, because now she understands just what it means to be her. Friendship is an important aspect of this, because she needs to realize that she can be herself amongst others; in fact, that being herself is a good thing and she can help other people along their journey of self-actualization." Cindy made a face, she couldn't believe she was about to say this next bit. "Stupidest analogy ever, but, by herself, the hero is like a log floating down a river. She can't be sunk, but she's going to have trouble getting where she wants to go. With the strength and support of others, however, they become a raft. Make sense?"
"For the masculine journey, however, Stage Seven is where he faces Death. For him, it's more of a fork in the road. He can either accept his death with grace or he can rail against it with futility. Here, while it can certainly be a true death the hero is facing, it can also just as easily be the hero coming to terms with his own fears, flaws, and shortcomings. For the first time, the hero looks past his intended goal and realizes that there's something more out there, something greater than what he's been going after. Should he decide to accept his death, then he goes through an abbreviated version of the feminine journey after all; he experiences a kind of 'dark night of the soul' where everything seems lost to him and he acknowledges that. The tools he received when he first set out fail him, his strategies fall apart, everything that he's come to trust and rely on are taken away. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. Here, he realizes that he has to stop resisting, stop attempting to stay in control all the time, stop only using his brawn or his brains and start remembering that he is a whole person with emotions and feelings, too."
"Should he decide to rebel, however, then he doesn't have these realizations. When he rages against death, he's raging against the whole idea of transformation. Rather than acceptance, he tries to overcome his own mortality, prove stronger than death, whether his own or that of a loved one. He'll build up his own ego until he believes he's become almost superhuman, the paragon of crazed masculinity, taking stupid risks and uncaring of those he might hurt in the pursuit of his own goal. He doesn't believe he needs anyone or anything and he cannot accept that his goal might not be right. In the beginning of the class, we talked about heroes on the feminine journey must realize that there is power within themselves, and that heroes on the masculine journey must realize that the power they know they have is actually holding them back from a full, rich life. Heroes who rebel, therefore, cling to that power, shutting themselves off from any chance of that better life. They, then, face a real death--either the death of their body or the death of their soul."
Brief internet witticism aside, Cindy was ready to be all business. "So, in this Act, we find out if the hero lives or dies, succeeds or fails. Which is fairly interesting because when we last discussed our heroes, one was dead and the other was facing trials. Don't worry about the dead thing; with most heroes, they get better."
Apparently, Cindy thought she was funny this morning.
"For the hero on the feminine journey, Act Three starts with Stage Seven, Support. This may seem odd, since this entire time, we've been talking about the hero finding the strength inside herself to go on, but the idea of support is absolutely integral for the hero on the feminine journey--mostly because she has gone so long without it. We've discussed that, in the beginning, the hero often doesn't have the support of society when she sets out. She is turning her back on what is established and making her own way. When she is dealing with a so-called 'friendly' society, it's the kind of support that tried to take away her actualization and self-control. In short, the support we see in Stage Five, for example, is the equivalent of telling her to sit here like a good girl and let everyone else take care of things, because she can't. It looks like help, but really, it's another show of dominance. The support given in Stage Seven is different. It isn't people coming in to save the day in her stead; it's often people or animals who the hero has helped on her way, who come to stand with her and throw their lot in with hers to prove that they trust and believe in her. Whether we're looking at The Wizard of Oz or any fairy tale ever where the youngest daughter is kind to animals, this trope is in evidence. Many of you brought this up in your own essays: that, at your darkest moments, there were others there to help bring you out."
"Just because the hero has power and strength within, it doesn't mean that she has to stand alone or suddenly be magically good at everything. She is still the same person that she was, only with a newfound understanding of just who or what that person is. She has to learn that there is a difference between asking for and accepting help and letting someone else do everything for her. Even if, in the story, there is no one else physically present, she may have set up the assistance before hand (setting out tools or information for her future use) or be aided and comforted by her own beliefs or something of that kind."
"In fact, it's when this support is absent that she fails, like in The Epiphany, where Edith commits suicide because there's no one there to support her. The feminine journey includes the relation between the individual and the group. No one can force her to do something or become something different or try to take away who she is essentially, because now she understands just what it means to be her. Friendship is an important aspect of this, because she needs to realize that she can be herself amongst others; in fact, that being herself is a good thing and she can help other people along their journey of self-actualization." Cindy made a face, she couldn't believe she was about to say this next bit. "Stupidest analogy ever, but, by herself, the hero is like a log floating down a river. She can't be sunk, but she's going to have trouble getting where she wants to go. With the strength and support of others, however, they become a raft. Make sense?"
"For the masculine journey, however, Stage Seven is where he faces Death. For him, it's more of a fork in the road. He can either accept his death with grace or he can rail against it with futility. Here, while it can certainly be a true death the hero is facing, it can also just as easily be the hero coming to terms with his own fears, flaws, and shortcomings. For the first time, the hero looks past his intended goal and realizes that there's something more out there, something greater than what he's been going after. Should he decide to accept his death, then he goes through an abbreviated version of the feminine journey after all; he experiences a kind of 'dark night of the soul' where everything seems lost to him and he acknowledges that. The tools he received when he first set out fail him, his strategies fall apart, everything that he's come to trust and rely on are taken away. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. Here, he realizes that he has to stop resisting, stop attempting to stay in control all the time, stop only using his brawn or his brains and start remembering that he is a whole person with emotions and feelings, too."
"Should he decide to rebel, however, then he doesn't have these realizations. When he rages against death, he's raging against the whole idea of transformation. Rather than acceptance, he tries to overcome his own mortality, prove stronger than death, whether his own or that of a loved one. He'll build up his own ego until he believes he's become almost superhuman, the paragon of crazed masculinity, taking stupid risks and uncaring of those he might hurt in the pursuit of his own goal. He doesn't believe he needs anyone or anything and he cannot accept that his goal might not be right. In the beginning of the class, we talked about heroes on the feminine journey must realize that there is power within themselves, and that heroes on the masculine journey must realize that the power they know they have is actually holding them back from a full, rich life. Heroes who rebel, therefore, cling to that power, shutting themselves off from any chance of that better life. They, then, face a real death--either the death of their body or the death of their soul."