Join the best erotica focused adult social network now
Login

Applying Joseph's Campbell's philosophy from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" to erotica

last reply
11 replies
1.2k views
0 watchers
0 likes
C_R_R_Crawford
Active Ink Slinger
Has anyone given any thought to applying Joseph Cambell's 'hero' philosophy to erotic writing?

For those not familiar, Campbell was an American professor literature best known for his work, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." In it, he shares his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth. George Lucas credited Campbell's work as influencing the original Star Wars saga.

Campbell summaries the monomyth:

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. "The hero's adventure" begins in the ordinary world. He must depart from the ordinary world, when he receives a call to adventure. With the help of a mentor, the hero will cross a guarded threshold, leading him to a supernatural world, where familiar laws and order do not apply. There, the hero will embark on a road of trials, where he is tested along the way. The archetypal hero is sometimes assisted by allies. As the hero faces the ordeal, he encounters the greatest challenge of the journey. Upon rising to the challenge, the hero will receive a reward, or boon. Campbell's theory of the monomyth continues with the inclusion of a metaphorical death and resurrection. The hero must then decide to return with this boon to the ordinary world. The hero then faces more trials on the road back. Upon the hero's return, the boon or gift may be used to improve the hero's ordinary world, in what Campbell calls, the application of the boon.

In erotica, the hero is likely our protagonist / narrator. But who is the mentor? What is the challenge the hero faces? Getting caught? Doing the forbidden? How do they overcome it and what might be their metaphorical death and resurrection?
noll
"insensitive prick!" – Danielle Algo
The only Monomyth I know of:


===  Not ALL LIVES MATTER until BLACK LIVES MATTER  ===
wicked_jocelyn
Active Ink Slinger
There was a thesis I read years back that the monomyth developed, as a story structure, to justify the reign of monarchs. Basically, story tellers told legends of the great bronze age chief or something. I think then there's a lot of baggage about the monomyth that would make it hard to adapt for erotica. Erotica, no matter what, is about relationships. The monomyth, no matter what else can be said about it, about is about a singular (male) hero rising to his full potentional or something. Romance, is therefore a subplot.

Star Wars IV, I think might be a particularly bad example of this. The chosen one goes on his journey, defeats the baddies, and then gets a smile from the beautiful princess because he deserves it now. That's not erotica I would read.

Now, it sounds like I'm being harsh on the Monomyth and to be honest I am. That doesn't mean that I don't think it could work or be sexy somehow. Could I imagine a sexy story in which "the messenger" delivers some important message to the hero, who then undergoes mentorship from "the sage" and is given an "artifact" in the process? Yeah sure. It might be like this. Once upon a time a maid was milking cows in her village when a beautiful fey lord spoke to her that her village could be saved if only she learned to seduce a prince of the Unseelie court. She met another fey woman who taught her that pain was not to be feared, but the stage of pleasure. The milk maid was able to hold the magical scourge, of which no one knows for sure why... yet.

That could be sexy.

"The Punished Nonpartisan" <- Extreme BDSM and humiliation story. Heavy on plot. Served on a plate of political drama with a side of domestic terror. Currently Free download.

Jocelyn the Wicked <- futanari, fantasy fan fic, and some tentacles that escaped the laboratory
PhilU
Forum Kan-Guru
Quote by crrcrawford


In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. "The hero's adventure" begins in the ordinary world. He must depart from the ordinary world, when he receives a call to adventure. With the help of a mentor, the hero will cross a guarded threshold, leading him to a supernatural world, where familiar laws and order do not apply. There, the hero will embark on a road of trials, where he is tested along the way. The archetypal hero is sometimes assisted by allies. As the hero faces the ordeal, he encounters the greatest challenge of the journey. Upon rising to the challenge, the hero will receive a reward, or boon. Campbell's theory of the monomyth continues with the inclusion of a metaphorical death and resurrection. The hero must then decide to return with this boon to the ordinary world. The hero then faces more trials on the road back. Upon the hero's return, the boon or gift may be used to improve the hero's ordinary world, in what Campbell calls, the application of the boon.



I've just given slightly more thought to this than it possibly deserves - I think Campbell was really good at over-generalizing. So many stories can fit into the generic framework he came up with...

For example, here is my take on an erotic "hero[ine]'s adventure".

Catherine begins in a world of boring sex with her partner, but receives a call (well, a dream) about something more adventurous. With the help of a mentor (a psychologist and/or the friends who like to fuck), she travels on a holiday, and crosses into a world where people fuck people who aren't their partner in myriad ways, and enjoy it immensely. Her old, boring self metaphorically dies, she receives an overwhelming "little death", and she is reborn as a woman who loves to fuck. She shares this boon with lots of people, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Not too many trials on the road back, but hey, it was an attempt at a "Pure Filth" comp, and there was a word limit, or else maybe there would have been a dp trial?
C_R_R_Crawford
Active Ink Slinger
I like the feminist take on it Wicked Jocelyn. I'd read that story.

@PhilU, I think Campbell's entire point is that every story fits into his generic framework in one way or another. But I'm not convinced by his argument.

Good erotica is about relationships and sex, but the reader needs a story to keep them interested. If they just wanted straight sex, they'd be on Porn Hub along with everyone else.
PhilU
Forum Kan-Guru
Quote by crrcrawford
I like the feminist take on it Wicked Jocelyn. I'd read that story.

@PhilU, I think Campbell's entire point is that every story fits into his generic framework in one way or another. But I'm not convinced by his argument.

Good erotica is about relationships and sex, but the reader needs a story to keep them interested. If they just wanted straight sex, they'd be on Porn Hub along with everyone else.


Yes, I'm not sure I explained myself very well in my previous ramblings. I guess I thought I was showing that you really have to push it a bit to fit silly porn stories like mine into this grand schema. But it can be done in lots of cases. I think that some of that is that humans are very good at seeing patterns in things, even when there really isn't that much of a pattern. I've heard this explained as roughly: Prehistoric man who sees a sabre-tooth tiger in the long grass ten times as often as there really is one there, lives to bonk lots of prehistoric women. Prehistoric man who thinks, 'You know, that's most likely just the way the light is falling,' just once too often, is removed from the gene pool.

Plus, stories reflect life to some extent. Life is kind of like a journey, and the most interesting events change us (the previous person 'dies' and is 'resurrected' as someone else) e.g. on this site, the first time having sex, or the first time meeting the right person, or the first time being tied up and used by 27 strangers.

Of course, there's still plenty of stories on here where the plot is basically that one or more people have lots of orgasms and then the story ends, so I'm not sure how that fits Campbell's theory. So yeah, I'm not convinced either.
Unknown User
Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I always thought archetypal themes emerged during the telling of a story because, well — because they're archetypal, are wired into our humanity. Consequently, if one is working from a creative core, they can't help but emerge — if you pay attention, that is, give them their due when they bubble up.

I have a book — somewhere on my shelves — that I read years ago. From memory, it's about writing using archetypal themes as a template. I hated it. I know they say George Lucas studied this kind of stuff, that Star Wars is one long daisy chain of archetypal cliches, but it seems such a contrived way to work. IMHO

And don't get me wrong; I've read my Jung — still read him after all these years.


If you've not already seen this, some of you guys might enjoy this talk by Kurt Vonnegut. It's about the trajectory of stories. You need to watch it all the way through to get his point.
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
Quote by LucaByDesign
Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I always thought archetypal themes emerged during the telling of a story because, well — because they're archetypal, are wired into our humanity. Consequently, if one is working from a creative core, they can't help but emerge — if you pay attention, that is, give them their due when they bubble up.

I have a book — somewhere on my shelves — that I read years ago. From memory, it's about writing using archetypal themes as a template. I hated it. I know they say George Lucas studied this kind of stuff, that Star Wars is one long daisy chain of archetypal cliches, but it seems such a contrived way to work. IMHO

And don't get me wrong; I've read my Jung — still read him after all these years.


If you've not already seen this, some of you guys might enjoy this talk by Kurt Vonnegut. It's about the trajectory of stories. You need to watch it all the way through to get his point.





Bookmarking the Vonnegut to watch later.

I agree with much of this. Archetypes will crop up, and it's the writer's job to recognize and harness them when they do. BUT I think there is fine line between archetypes and cliches (it's where the cliches came from!), and the Star Wars movies are a perfect example of this. I know I'm in the minority in saying this, but I find them pretty overrated, and I like sci-fi. Archetype can quickly devolve into cliche, and it did in those movies.

When it works though, it's powerful (even when you're subverting it, like Jocelyn) and it's easy to find the archetypes lurking in every favorite narrative, movies or books or a story someone just told you.

I think it applies to a TON of erotica.
Unknown User
Quote by LucaByDesign


And don't get me wrong; I've read my Jung — still read him after all these years.



So did Joseph Campbell. One of his big sources, really.

A lot of modern mythologists reject the monomyth hypothesis but it remains (overly) popular in literature. There's even satires of Campbell-inspired fantasy (e.g. Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah Dawson and Kevin Hearne). Frankly, a lot of us think that story arc as a conscious story structure is played out. Tolkien gave us a great version of the hero's journey (The Hobbit, but The Lord of the Rings does a good job, too) without ever knowing about Campbell. He just drew on the Germanic and Finnish myths and literature he studied.

So I would say, don't read Campbell, don't try to consciously write the monomyth. You'll end up with cliché instead of mythology at this point. Write what is in your head and heart and likely traditional archetypes will show up.

The problem, to my mind, with Star Wars is (a) it told the full story by the end of Return of the Jedi and should have stopped there, (b) Lucas wore his sources on his sleeve a bit too consciously at times. I love the original trilogy and Empire is one of my favorite movies but interestingly, Empire is the one he had the least to do with (written by sf writer Leigh Brackett and writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, directed by Irvin Kershner).