Hey Everyone,
Our next book club meeting is January 16th and I wanted to get a few ideas out there for discussion. The theme this month is "A Hero's Journey," and I felt I should clarify what that may mean. This idea has been around, well, forever. The ultimate tale is that of Beowulf, where, you have a main character that goes through certain hardships in life in order to acheive a fantastic goal.
Even though the storyline of the hero's journey dates back to some of the first novels, the first person to recognized the journey as a story pattern was Joseph Campbell in the 1940's. He wrote a novel called, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and called the actual journey a "Monomyth."
The term "monomyth" actual came from James Joyce in his novel, Finnegans Wake:

And then and too the trivials! And their bivouac!
And his monomyth! Ah ho! Say no more about it! I’m sorry!
I saw. I’m sorry! I’m sorry to say I saw!   (Joyce 575)
Now, from this passage you may wonder why Campbell chose the word monomyth at all? Finnegans Wake is, of course, a novel that some say is impossible to understand. However, if I were to guess, I would say that Campbell himself was sorry that he recongnized this storyline repitition. Because, once you understand the journey of the hero, you will realize that most classic and contemporary novels encompass this story line.

To better break down a hero's journey, there are diagrams that people have created. These diagrams work well in classrooms to give students a visual understand of the character's journey. .


This image can be found on www.thewritersjourney.com.