Mythic Structure and Story

All stories consist of a few common elements. These elements constitute all stories, fairy tales, dreams, movies, and myths. These elements also form what Christopher Vogler describes in The Writer’s Journey–Mythic Structure for Writers, as The Hero’s Journey.

The Hero’s Journey becomes not only a universal myth for human kind, but also offers a blueprint for writers in constructing our stories.

Joseph Campbell asserted that all stories follow a pattern whatever their culture of origin. This pattern these stories follow is reflected in the ancient myths of humanity.

This would seem to support what Willa Cather writes in O Pioneers: “There are two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened.”

Writers benefit from studying mythic structure, and the monomyth, what Joseph Campbell defines as the universal pattern that underlies all stories, regardless of their culture.

The universal blueprint of the monomyth is flexible enough to display the personal journey, and yet it contains elements inherent to every human experience.

In this way the Hero‘s or Heroine‘s Journey operates like that of Jung’s collective or archetypal unconscious.

Jung defined archetypes as a universal prototype, or symbol, that reflects and reveals various aspects or dimensions of personality and soul, both of which form the psyche.

Jung saw psychological and spiritual growth as interwoven, that the world’s religions were intricate and highly developed systems of psychology lending practitioners a guide for successfully matriculating life, a way to endow living with meaning and purpose.

Each story or novel we write offers a small anecdote on life, delivers a piece of knowledge that some spiritual system has held as wisdom, and that humanity has through experience, come to see as true.

What is the pattern of stories and novels that you find most entertaining?

What is your favorite fairy tale or myth?