The Problem with The Hero's Journey Paradigm

            After Joseph Campbell realized and voiced the similarities between myths, legends, and stories across many cultures, he believed that we, the audience to those stories, could use the structure and stages that were present to give our own lives meaning. But Campbell missed something crucial: the stories and legends that we love so much are not real, they are made up. The creators of those stories, try as they may to create something that is realistic, can only create fiction, because fiction is what their audience wants to hear. Who would want to read about the mundane boring occurrences of daily life, and more over who would want to write about them. We crave not another dose of realism, but an escape, and so there is little reason for the events that transpire in the stories to which we escape to have much connection with the real world. Those stories are so idealized that nothing like them can ever happen in our world.

            Who are our heroes? They are athletes who dazzle us with their superhuman feats. They are soldiers who die to save their loved ones. They are politicians who have brought on great change. But the number of those heroes whose journeys even remotely resemble the hero’s paradigm are a drop in the bucket when compared to those whose don’t. The only thing that is different about the stories that do follow Campbell’s archetype is that we enjoy them more, and then tell them to our friends, and they enjoy them more, who tell them to their friends.

            Room is fiction. There is no escaping that fact. Emma Donoghue was not writing a true story, but making up her own. So, like it or not, the specific events that make us think of Jack or Ma as heroes that follow the Hero’s Journey paradigm are fake.

            There is no kind way to say this, but you will not follow the hero’s journey. Nor will I. And do you even want to? The heroes themselves don’t seem to be having much fun. Yet, if you are like me, you still want to be a hero. What do you think? Am I right to believe that Campbell’s Hero’s Journey can never happen in the real world? That when we think of that paradigm we aspire to be and do things that have been produced not for reality but for mass consumption? Or am I missing something?

The Social Requirement for Heroes

EDIT: If you are going to read this post, please read my last blog post first. Please. Many of the issues raised by people in the comments are addressed in that blog post. Also it is, in my opinion, much more interesting and well put together than this one.

Joseph Campbell believes that to lead the most fulfilling and satisfying life possible, we need to lead our own Hero’s Journey. And yes, we all can see some aspects of the Hero’s Journey in ourselves, though not nearly as epic as those that we have read about. But there is a major facet of being a hero that Joseph Campbell missed. Admittedly, I have not read much of his works, and it is possible that he discusses and ultimately disproves the point that I am trying to make. That is a chance I am willing to take. What I believe that Joseph Campbell missed is the social aspect of Heroes: in real life, heroes are created by the society around them.

            In my last blog post, I argued that a to be a hero requires a witness. In a comment on that blog post Arielle said a great example: “Say there is a hero who just saved the entire planet from an alien invasion at the edge of our galaxy, all by himself [...] but it's so far away that no one on earth knows about it.” Is he a hero? Well, it is more complicated than it seems. If we are talking about that man’s story, then he is a hero to us. But if really nobody knew about his story, then he could not be a hero. Again, read my last blog post if you want to hear the reasoning that led me to make this conclusion. I argue that someone cannot become a hero if no one says that they are. Without the public eye, we may only be heroic, but are not yet heroes.

            As room progresses, I believe that there will be more discussion regarding the media. At least, the first few lines of ‘After’ hinted at that when they started talking about the ‘vultures.’ When we read room, we know that Jack is a hero because we know what he has done. However, at this point in the novel, by which I mean right after the great escape, very few people in Jack’s world know what he has done. I think that the media will make Jack into a hero. Lets see where it goes.