On the Hero's (and Heroine's) Journey
“Hero” is one of those words that packs a lot of punch (no pun intended). Everyone understands it to mean the same basic thing: someone who’s admired for their qualities or achievements. But different people can have very different ideas about what actions or people they’d consider heroic, and just what promotes a figure to hero status within a society tells you as much about that culture’s values and perspective as it does about the hero themselves.
Hero also has multiple meanings in a literary sense. It can mean, among other things:
A character, often in mythology or folklore, who has superhuman qualities or a semidivine origin, and whose exploits or adventures are the subject of legends, epics, or myths.
The primary male character in a narrative, typically one who is identified with good qualities in a good vs. evil conflict.
The primary character in a narrative with whom the reader is intended to sympathize; synonymous with protagonist.
Scholars and writers over the years have come up a number of rating systems to determine a character’s level of hero-ness. While their usefulness may vary depending on the type of storytelling you do, they’re a good way to understand the archetype and how much a character aligns with it.
The Monomyth
The definitive hero’s journey for many is the one outlined by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It outlines 17 steps, broken down into 3 stages: departure, initiation, and return.
Campbell was a James Joyce scholar, and he took the word monomyth from Finnegans Wake as a way to describe the ultimate archetype of a narrative hero. The more of the 17 steps the character takes, the more firmly they adhere to this archetype.
The 17 steps of the hero’s journey
I. Departure
1. The call to adventure: The hero’s mundane life is interrupted
2. Refusal of the call: The hero hesitates to leave their comfort zone
3. Supernatural aid: A mentor (usually with supernatural powers) shows up and motivates the hero to change their mind
4. Crossing the threshold: The hero starts their quest or journey
5. Belly of the whale: The first major obstacle is overcome and the hero crosses the point of no return
II. Initiation
6. The road of trials: The hero faces several tests, often failing at least one
7. The meeting with the goddess: This doesn’t have to be a goddess—it’s often a more general set of multiple allies who join the hero’s quest
8. Woman as temptress: The hero faces some temptation to abandon his quest, often a love interest, though it can also be another pull like power, wealth, or fame
9. Atonement with the father: The hero faces his fears and confronts the reason for his journey. This usually represents the first major climax or turning point of the story
10. Apotheosis: The hero gains a new understanding of their ultimate purpose and prepares for the next stage of their adventure
11. The ultimate boon: The hero’s quest is fulfilled.
III. Return
12. Refusal of the return: The hero is reluctant to return to his ordinary life
13. The magic flight: The hero must quickly escape, often in response to a new threat or to protect the object of his quest from people who want to take it
14. Rescue from without: A guide or rescuer arrives to aid the hero’s escaoe
15. The crossing of the return threshold: The hero returns successfully to their ordinary world
16. Master of two worlds: Hero balances his former existence with the changes he’s experienced during his journey
17. Freedom to live: Story ends with the hero at peace
The Rank-Raglan Mythotype
There are two scholars involved in this one. Otto Rank was a psychoanalyst, who proposed a concept of the mythic hero in his 1909 book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. Lord Raglan, an amateur anthropologist, built off of this in his 1936 book The Hero, A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama.
Rank’s pattern was based primarily on the Oedipus legend, and focuses on common traits of classical myths in the first half of the hero’s life and his rise to power. Raglan’s scale takes in the hero’s entire story from birth to death. It also has a slightly broader cultural focus, looking at common patterns in myths of various Indo-European cultures.
The Rank Scale
Child of distinguised parents
Father is a king
Difficulty in conception
Prophecy warning against birth
Hero surrendered to the water in a box
Saved by animals or lowly people
Suckled by female animal or humble woman
Hero grows up
Hero finds distinguished parents
Hero takes revenge on the father
Acknwoledged by people
Achieves rank and honors
The Raglan Scale
Mother is a royal virgin
Father is a king
Father often a near relative to mother
Unusual conception
Hero reputed to be son of god
Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandmother
Hero spirited away as a child
Reared by foster parents in a far country
No details of childhood
Returns or goes to future kingdom
Is victor over king, giant, dragon, or wild beast
Marries a princess
Becomes a king
For a time he reigns uneventfully
He prescribes laws
Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
Driven from throne and city
Meets with mysterious death
Often at the top of a hill
His children, if any, do not succeed him
His body is not buried
Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs
The Heroine’s Journey
Campbell, Rank, and Raglan all wrote viewing male heroes as the default. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re only useful for analyzing specifically male characters—characters of any gender can set out on a hero’s journey—but in a yin-yang sense it has a masculine energy, aligning with concepts of male coming-of-age and discovery of one’s true purpose through exploration and external trials.
In the 1990s, psychotherapist Maureen Murdock reimagined the hero’s journey from a more internal, feminine angle. She initially did this in a self-help book, and author Victoria Lynn Schmidt took the model and adapted it to apply better to characters and narrative in a general sense. She first outlined her version in her 2001 book 45 Master Characters.
While these models focus on women, they more generally can apply to any marginalized hero whose journey is one of finding community, or a shift from isolation to belonging (as opposed to the usual trajectory of the hero’s journey, which is focused on a rise in status). Murdock’s original version is more focused on the emotional journey of the heroine, while Schmidt’s is more often applied to literature.
Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey
1. Heroine separates from the feminine: Often this takes the form of escaping an overbearing mother figure, or a marginalized role for certain women in the society
2. Identification with the masculine and gathering of allies: The heroine chooses a new way of life and identity, often within a male-dominated sphere, and prepares to fight against their oppressor
3. Road of trials: The heroine encouters several trials and people who try to destroy her or turn her from her chosen path.
4. Experiencing the illusory boon of success: These intial obstacles are overcome and the initial quest is achieved, but at the cost of betraying her own values or identity.
5. Heroine awakens to feelings of spiritual death: The heroine realizes her new way of life is too limited and her success is temporary, shallow, or illusory.
6. Initiation and descent to the goddess: The heroine faces a crisis that she is not prepared to overcome and falls into despair, then meets with a goddess figure who represents the feminity she has left behind.
7. Heroine yearns to reconnect with the feminine: The heroine faces a new conflict of wanting to reconnect with their old life, but without the limitations it carried.
8. Heroine heals the mother/daughter split: The heroine reclaims their initial skills, values, or attributes and learns to appreciate them from a new perspective.
9. Heroine heals the wounded masculine within: The heroine makes peace with the masucline aspects she adopted to escape her oppression and understands the positives and negatives of them.
10. Heroine integrates the masculine and feminine: All aspects of the heroine’s identity are integrated, allowing her to gain a better understanding of herself and the world at large.
Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey
1. Illusion of the perfect world: The heroine is naïve or deluded and believes her current situation is perfect.
2. Betrayal or disillusionment: A crisis or betrayal forces the heroine to recognize that the world is not as perfect as they thought.
3. The awakening: The heroine decides to take action to improve her situation. This often means embarking on a journey, bringing along tools or skills developed in her previous life. She’ll often meet others who either encourage and help or attempt to prevent her from making this change.
4. The descent: passing through the gates of judgment: Another betrayal or failure makes the heroine doubt her quest or new identity, and she has to give up some or all of her tools, defenses, and weapons, symbolically abandoning her old life, in order to move forward.
5. The eye of the storm: A small victory brings about a false sense of security. The heroine experiences momentary success but is undermined by those around her, or expected to fuilfill impossible obligations.
6. Death/all is lost: The heroine realizes their new tools aren’t enough to sustain them and loses hope, fails, or accepts defeat.
7. Support: An outside figure comes to help the heroine in her darkest moment. She embraces the need for support and accepts that she’s not completely self-sufficient.
8. Rebirth/moment of truth: With the help of their supporter, the heroine awakens and sees her role in the world through new eyes, overcoming her fear and doubts.
9. Return to a new world: With this new perspective, the heroine sees the world for what it is and changes the way she lives, often altering the society or the lives of others around her in the process.
Do all heroes follow these steps?
No, and they don’t have to. The Rank and Raglan scales especially are focused on a specific type of mythic storytelling, and there are plenty of heroic characters whose stories don’t align neatly to any of these paths. While they’re not prescriptive, though, these journeys can be useful tools for how to pace and structure a heroic narrative, and can give you some helpful insights into how readers expect to see a hero’s journey unfold based on this shared cultural context.
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