MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY

Put simply, a myth is a story that represents people's deepest feelings and experiences. Ancient or primitive people created myths to explain things which more sophisticated people explain through disciplines such as science, psychology, or theology. For example, a myth may explain a natural occurrence, such as the cycle of the seasons or the configuration of a constellation. Or it might embody a complicated human relationship, as between child and parent or man and woman. Or it might confront more metaphysical problems, such as the behavior of the gods, the role of Fate in a person's life, or what happens to one after death. Thus, David Leeming has described myth as "the metaphorical, symbolical, or direct expression of the 'unknown''' .

Several misconceptions about myth need to be dispelled. One is that myths were the exclusive property of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Though we are perhaps most familiar with Greek and Roman mythology, myths are common to all people, in all times, throughout the world. Another misconception, this one more serious, is that myths are "fairytales," stories which have no basis in fact and hence may be discredited. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than being falsehoods, myths are the essence of truth, a reflection of humanity's universal experience, enduring out-side the limitations of time and place. Scratch the surface of any myth and you'll discover its essential truth. Akin to the notion that myths are un-truth is the belief that we have "out-grown" the need for myths, that they are a kind of fossilized remains of ancient civilizations, interesting perhaps to a few specialists but of little value to an advanced technological society. On the contrary, myth is basic to human existence as we know it. It is as real as human concerns are real. When we lose our ability to respond to and appreciate the mythic element, we are in grave danger of becoming automatons, of losing that which makes us uniquely and truly human. Indeed, the society which has lost its mythic sensibility may be said to have lost its soul.

Let us look more closely at myths to see why this is true. For one thing myths, like dreams, serve as psychic escape valves. Indeed, myths have been called racial dreams. Most of us have had dreams in which we were being chased, and managed to escape, in which we were engaged in some contest that we won (or lost), in which we were looking for something of great value, or in which we encountered something that endangered our lives. Similarly, most societies have myths which express on a group level the same fears or wishes which dreams express for the individual. And just as an individual may become psychotic if deprived of dream producing sleep, so a society which has lost its myth-making ability may drift toward self-destruction.

Buried deep within our individual unconscious lies what has been called our "collective unconscious" or racial memory: a vague sense of familiarity with certain events that we have not personally experienced. Although psychologists disagree as to the origin or cause of this phenomenon, it is true that we respond emotionally when presented with certain themes, images, or patterns of action. These themes--called archetypes--seem to "strike a chord" of recognition whenever we encounter them. Fairy tales, folk legends, fantasies, as well as great works of literature often employ archetypes. Unless we have been trained to look for them, however, we usually are not aware of their presence; we simply know that we "like" the work and seem emotionally drawn to it. (The popularity of certain movies like Star Wars or the writings of J. R. R. Tolkein may in part be attributed to their incorporation of archetypal themes.) Since virtually all myths present us with archetypes of one form or another, we see once again the relevance of myth to our everyday lives.

We may now turn from the general to the specific and examine a particular pattern that is perhaps the most basic and most common of all archetypes. This pattern is called the "monomyth" because it reflects the single, essential, most inclusive pattern of human experience. The nuclear unit of the monomyth may be expressed by the formula of separation, initiation, and return. Epic heroes such as Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante all follow this pattern. Moreover, our own lives if we examine them closely usually resemble the monomythic pattern in whole or in part. (We leave the familiarity of home and go away, to college, to a big city, to war, and eventually return, changed by our experience.) Thus the pattern of the individual life merges with the universal myth.

While our own lives may partake of the monomyth, it is the hero who best expresses the archetypal adventurer in his journey through life and beyond. (In most instances, the monomythic hero is male, though there may be a separate mythic pattern common to females; more about this later.) Joseph Campbell describes the mythic hero as that individual who is able to return from his adventure with "the power to bestow boons on his fellow man". The journey of the hero may be divided into eight stages, which are the supreme mythic events in the life of the hero and which correspond on a psychological level to certain significant periods in the development of each individual. The first such event is birth, and while each of us begins our life by being born, the hero's birth is generally miraculous or unusual in the extreme. He or she may be the product of a miraculous conception resulting from the union of a mortal and divine being, like the birth of Helen after Zeus disguised as a swan raped Leda. Or, he may have undergone some singular experience shortly after birth, such as being lost or abandoned by his natural parents and suckled by beasts, as in the case of Romulus, or rescued and adopted, like Oedipus. The second stage, childhood and adolescence, also is marked by up usual events. The hero may be precociously strong or intelligent, amazing his elders with feats of strength or great wisdom. Frequently, also, his acts are marked by a divine sign proclaiming his special nature. Or if the hero is more "normal" in terms of his own strength and skill, he may have special "protectors" or talismans which give him assistance along the way. At any rate, childhood is a first stage of initiation in which the child must confront and master a superior force or receive the psychic reassurance that he needs to move on to the next stage.

Once he has successfully passed through the initiation stage, the hero then withdraws for a period of time in preparation for the next, active phase. His withdrawal stage is usually one of meditation and passivity, a looking into the self and achieving an awareness of one's unique identity or mission. Paradoxically, the hero must lose himself in order to find himself. Then, gathering his psychic powers he is ready to return to the world to undertake his great tasks. Frequently, the hero is tempted during his withdrawal by a representative of "the world," usually a devil-figure. This is particularly true in the case of saints (like Saint Anthony) or religious figures (like Jesus and Buddha). In classical myth the withdrawal may take the form of the descent into the underworld, symbolically an exploration of the hidden recesses of the psyche. For example, it has been pointed out that Odysseus' descent to the underworld in Book XI of the Odyssey is unnecessary in terms of the action of the poem; for once, the hero does nothing; he merely sees and questions, and the instructions given him by Tiresias are less explicit than those supplied by Kirke later on. But Odysseus needs the vision the underworld offers him; he must confront his past--his mother, his comrades in arms who died at Troy--before he can face the future--the killing of the suitors. The same might be said for Aeneas, who must envision the future glory of Rome in the underworld before he is ready to endure the hardships of war and colonization.

The fourth stage involves labor or quest. This represents the active period of full maturity. In this stage the hero does great deeds, like Hercules, Achilles, Theseus; or he goes on a journey--like Odysseus, Sinbad, Jason. He must confront and overcome the external forces in life as he did the internal forces in the previous stage. The fourth stage is ended by the fifth stage: death. One might think that this would end the process altogether, but for the mythic hero, death, like birth, is extraordinary. In a sense, his labors of stage four simply continue into stage five, for here he must confront physical death --the greatest foe of all. The mythic hero thus becomes the scapegoat, enduring death for all men. In vicariously experiencing his death, we die also, and so psychologically he relieves us of our fear and anxiety. His death is often terrible in the extreme, involving great suffering or the total destruction of the body and its life-giving properties; often he is dismembered or castrated. In stage six the hero continues in his role as quester and scapegoat as he descends to the underworld. Psychologically, he represents the desire of each of us to penetrate the mystery of death and understand it. He must struggle with the forces of death and overcome them. Paradoxically, the descent into the underworld holds the promise of renewed life; death and fertility are inseparable in nature, and so in the myth death is followed by re-birth. The seventh step, then, is resurrection, the return of the hero from the underworld. Again, psychologically he represents our desire to overcome and as he triumphs, so vicariously do we. The hero, however, is extraordinary in that he brings with him a gift, a knowledge, a "boon" which he can share with others and which has far-reaching effects. His adventure brings about a change in the lives of many. Thus in the final stage the true uniqueness of the hero is made manifest. He transcends his role as "Everyman," as humanity's representative, and becomes more than human; that is, he becomes divine. He ascends to heaven and achieves union with the mother-goddess, atonement with the father-creator, or apotheosis, becoming himself a god. We may explain this final step psychologically by saying that the human being, having dealt with the problems of birth, childhood, adolescence, and maturity, having faced the internal and external trials of existence, turns at last to confront the mystery of the unknown.

While the myth of the hero can apply to either the male or female protagonist who, in Joseph Campbell's words, "has been able to battle past his [or her] personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normal human forms", most of the examples which illustrate the pattern--Jason, Odysseus, Aeneas, Theseus, Jesus--are male. When one tries to think of feminine models who fit the monomyth pattern, one is hard pressed to discover them; the few who do present themselves--Atalanta, Joan of Arc, Rosalind--typically have abandoned traditional female roles to assume a masculine model. What we perhaps need to do, then is to recognize the essential differences between male and female experience as it is revealed in those cumulative cultural dreams we call myth. If we look at the female figures of myth, literature, legend, etc., we may observe a recurring pattern which, like the myth of the hero, traces a rite of passage, but which is an inversion of the journey of the hero. Where the hero ventures out from what Campbell calls his "commonday hut or castle" voluntarily to cross the threshhold of adventure, the heroine remains at home. If it is true that society is the shaping force behind the mythology of any culture, it is easy to see why this would be the case: in most cultures, at least until recently, man has gone forth--to explore, to do battle, to seek his fortune--while woman has remained at home, confined to her familiar world. Her adventure begins when this safe, commonplace world is invaded by some outside intruder--inevitably masculine--who destroys her peace, opens her eyes, and changes her in some profound and often terrible way. He then departs, leaving her to come to grips with her new condition as best she can; in the worst case, she goes mad or dies, often by her own hand (Dido, for example); in the happiest eventuality, she fights her way clear to a new sense of self, discovering her true identity and defining afresh her relationship to the world around her (such a scenario might describe Penelope). The basic outline, then, presents us with a static, placid woman disturbed by a male intruder, who may be divine, demonic, or mortal, whose influence has far-reaching, sometimes fatal, sometimes restorative repercussions that institute profound changes for succeeding generations (e.g. Eve, Leda, the Virgin Mary). Thus, instead of the formula of separation-initiation-return, which characterizes the journey of the hero, the feminine monomyth seems to follow a pattern of intrusion-initiation-departure.

Mythology, because it expresses the basic drives, fears, and longings of humankind, is of crucial importance. As Carl Jung wrote, "it is possible to live the fullest life only when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them. It is a question neither of belief nor knowledge, but of the agreement of our thinking with the primordial images of the unconscious".

Bibliography:
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Meridian, 1956.
Jung, Carl Gustav. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936.
Leeming, David Adams. Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero. New York: Lippincott, 1973.