History of the MonoMyth
An Introduction into the MonoMyth (or Hero’s Journey) via it’s Origin and History, along with current usage.
The word MonoMyth was originally coined in the book Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce. It appears in the following text:
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!
p. 575
Quite Fitting. You will feel that way too when you begin to see these themes everywhere. I’m sorry to say I saw. :-)
The ideas of stories being the same is a very old one. The first published works regarding the studies into it was mostly done by Max Mueller (1823-1900) in his essay on Comparative Mythology.
Various patterns were spotted and written about over the years, until Otto Rank bridged the gap between Mythology and Psychology by interpreting myths and legends using Freud’s psychology.
Soon thereafter, Sir James George Frazer published The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion which points out the psychological workings behind a consciousness of magical realms. This book was of great influence and is still regarded as a classic.
James Joyce
To get back to Joyce, he flirted with the idea that all his life experiences, if so seen, would match up with the greatest stories (myths) of all time. If one takes all of Joyce’s works, they mirror the mythology of Dante’s Divine Comedy (save that Joyce never lived to finish his version of Paradisio) however, the other three Portrait, Ulysses and Finnegan’s hold true to Vita Nuova (The New Life), Inferno and Purgatorio, in one way or another.This is the main point in the book Ulysses. The story is of a Jewish Irishman who wanders Dublin on June 16, 1904. Each chapter references a character in the Odyssey and the growth of the characters Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus resemble the growth of Odysseus and Telemachus.
Soon after being published in 1922, the book fell into the hands of a grad student in medieval studies who could not make hide nor hair of it. Frustrated, he took it to the publisher who gave him a few hints on how to break into its codex. That man’s name was Joseph Campbell.
Joseph Campbell
Twenty-five to thirty years later, with the help of the works of Carl Jung, that grad student would write a book on the idea, using Joyce’s term ‘MonoMyth’ to bring forth this idea in The Hero with a Thousand Faces which would point out to the world how these repetitive universal myths are evident in our stories, in our lives and in our souls.The idea of all stories sharing the same base form level, similar to how all matter shares atoms, quarks (another of Joyce’s words) or strings has been greatly influential ever since. It has helped to spawn countless movie plots such as Star Wars and The Lion King which are strictly developed using this form.
Current Usage of MonoMyths
This recent application of the MonoMyth or Hero’s Journey is largely from the book The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, which provides a step by step account of each of the stages, along with wonderful examples from modern movies. A companion book Myth and Movies by Stuart Voytilla provides the maps of the MonoMyth from various movies similar to the mapping programs on this site.As for MonoMyth.org, its main purpose is to help to educate people about the themes of the stories, showing them their own repetitive stories, and roles of which most people don’t even realize.
The main inspiration was found at this website, to which I owe my sincere thanks. This picture shows the idea: (in case you cannot see the site.)
The website is wonderful at showing the stages (which I will go over once my version is working to my liking) using a person’s mouse to show a description of each one as they go to it.
The Future of the MonoMyth
The future usage of the MonoMyth is probably going to be the most powerful in anything having to do with the interaction between our Conscious and Unconscious minds. We at MonoMyth.org are trying to find those interested in Mythological-themed Projects with individuals who understand how Myths are essentially the bowls which hold the soups of wisdom, something greatly under-appreciated in our culture.The idea isn’t to literally tell the myths, but to respect them enough that you allow yourself to act as midwife to the creation of these powerful creatures. They flow through not from.
