Comparative Mythology - Or Why I Hate Campbell
Talking so much about Comparative Mythology in the last few weeks, I thought this was the perfect time to talk about my hatred of Joseph Campbell.
Even if you have never heard of Campbell, you probably know the graphic above. The Hero's Journey. Because you probably have seen that thing regurgitated on somebody's blog on writing, in some media analysis or maybe in school.
And it is an example of comparative mythology. But also it is wrong and I hate it and I hate even more what modern writing school has made out of it and if anyone tells me "actually it is all myths" I am gonna burn a book. Argh!
Yes, this is comparative mythology. The themes and motifs that Campbell defines within the Hero's Journey definitely show up a lot - especially in mythologies steming from the Proto-Indo-European one. Due to the prevalence especially in European mythology these motifs also show up a ton in modern western media (and medieval western media and everything in between), because that is just how storytelling works. We all kinda learn story structures from the stories we consume and automatically kinda mimic them when we tell stories. Even if you do not outright try to tell the stories that way.
BUT... I have two issues with this:
Campbell's idea of the monomyth and the male-centricness of it all.
The fact that people at some point had the great idea to sell that stuff as prescriptive, rather than descriptive.
We cannot know whether Campbell did, what he did, on purpose. But... he definitely focused his analysis on those myths that indeed fit his idea, but outright ignored those that did not. That most clearly shows in the fact that he focuses his analysis basically exclusively on patriarchal mythologies, ignoring that there are matriarchal cultures with different kinds of stories. And, again, mostly just going through indo-european stuff, which obviously has parallels, because it all stems from the same original mythology.
As such it absolutely has value as a comparative framework for Indo-European stuff, but... it is not the MONOmyth that Campbell wants it to be. Heck, even within the Indo-European stuff you will find enough myths that do not follow this framework.
But also... I have read too many writing advice books that went ahead and said: "All good stories have that. You HAVE TO DO IT LIKE THIS." Or in some cases in media criticism went there and went: "This story is good, because it follows the Hero's Journey." Which is... No. That was not even what Campbell was after. He just described parallels he said. It was never a "and everything has to be like this".
Aaaargh. I just hate it so much.
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