by Jaym Gates
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Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea. Berkeley: Parnassus, 1968. Print.
Showalter, Elaine. Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin De Siècle. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Viking, 1990. Print.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Amazon Digital Services, Inc., 2012. Kindle.
Strengell, Heidi. “‘The Monster Never Dies’: An Analysis Of The Gothic Double In Stephen King’s Oeuvre.” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-Present), 2003. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.
Into the Labyrinth: The Heroine’s Journey
A.C. Wise
Since its release in 1986, Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, has grown to be a cult classic. Like the fairy tales it draws inspiration from, there is a core, archetypal plot to Labyrinth that has helped make it such an enduring film. Even though the movie was released four years before Maureen Murdock published her book The Heroine’s Journey, which proposed an alternative to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of the Hero’s Journey laid out in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Labyrinth still provides an excellent example of Murdock’s basic structure. Labyrinth is a particularly interesting example of the Heroine’s Journey model, as it can be seen as a front-runner of a new wave of interest in fantasy and science fiction films centering around women. Among classic 80s fantasy movies, Labyrinth is one of the few to put a young woman’s journey front and center, and have her be active in her own tale.
This essay will explore Labyrinth as it maps to the Heroine’s Journey, along with other examples of works following the Hero/Heroine’s Journey model, with a brief discussion of the uses and limitations of tropes as a whole. Examples of written work will be touched on, however, the primary focus in this essay is on film and television. As a visual medium, there is an immediacy to film and television that allows it to be easily processed. As such, it is the first place many of us learn to recognize the language of tropes and understand the ways they can be used as building blocks to tell a story.
The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth
In his 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell introduced the concept of The Hero’s Journey, an archetypal plot or monomyth he developed by looking at stories across history and from around the world.
“There are of course differences between the numerous mythologies and religions of mankind, but this is a book about the similarities; and once these are understood the differences will be found to be much less great than is popularly (and politically) supposed.” (Campbell, xiii)
Readers of epic fantasy and consumers of speculative fiction-related media will likely recognize the basic Hero’s Journey plot structure. George Lucas, for example, was heavily influenced by The Hero with a Thousand Faces in his creation of the original Star Wars [1]. Reduced to its most basic components, a hero such as Luke Skywalker, King Arthur, or Frodo Baggins leaves the ordinary world to go on an adventure, faces self-doubt and enemies along the way, receives guidance from a wise old wizard, makes new friends, is gifted with a magical item, and eventually returns home triumphant.
There are variations and subplots, but as he stated in his introduction to The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell believed this structure to be more or less universal, expressing a common experience that would be instantly recognizable and relatable, regardless of a person’s individual culture, background, or beliefs.
Especially today, with the increasing awareness of the need for the stories we consume to reflect the full diversity of the world around us, the universal nature of Campbell’s monomyth is questionable. To demonstrate just one facet that is not fully captured by the Hero’s Journey, we can look to the overall absence of women. While The Hero With a Thousand Faces does offer up examples of women on journeys, such as the descent of Inanna into the underworld (Campbell, 87-89), the primary focus is on male heroes. Although Campbell may have intended to convey a universal experience, his model disregards the potential for the lived experiences of women to be different from those of men.
In his article Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey — The Twin Heroes, Dr. Howard Teich lays out the framework Campbell uses to define his concept of a hero. Campbell’s hero, as explored in his works (primarily his commentary on the Navajo myth Where the Two Came to Their Father published in 1943) is a twin hero, literally and figuratively. The twin heroes of Where the Two Came to Their Father encompass both traditionally masculine and feminine qualities. This dual understanding of the hero, Teich claims, carries over to the monomyth of the hero as a whole:
“With its emphasis on an eventual transcendence of restrictive dualities, Campbell’s monomythic hero’s journey is analogous to nearly all psycho-spiritual systems. Whether the initiate be a mythic hero or heroine, yogi, shaman, or an individual seeking spiritual truth, a preliminary stage along the path involves recognizing the coexistence of polarized forces and working toward reconciling them.” (Teich) [2]
However, even if Campbell did intend to be truly inclusive and have his hero represent an “everyperson” regardless of gender or background, the very idea of a universal story tends to flatten experiences into a one-size-fits-all framework, rather than expanding the archetypal model to recognize unique experiences. This can be seen in many examples of stories that follow the Hero’s Journey model, which tend to focus primarily on men and male experiences. George Lucas’s Star Wars, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings both offer up examples of male heroes undertaking their journeys in worlds nearly devoid of women, with a few notable exceptions.
Even within The Hero With a Thousand Faces itself, the majority of the myths used as examples to illustrate the stages of the Hero’s Journey use male heroes and male pronouns. Women appear primarily as Goddess and Temptress in the Initiation stage (Campbell, 91-104), which places them in the role of help or hindrance to the male hero, giving them no journey or agency of their own.
Maureen Murdock and the Feminine Alternative
In 1990, drawing on her background in psychology, Maureen Murdock proposed an alternate model with her book The Heroine’s Journey, in direct response to Campbell’s work. A prime example of the limitations of Campbell’s model that Murdock sought to address comes from an interaction between Campbell and Murdock. A student of Campbell’s, Murdock approached Campbell regarding the question of women’s unique experiences and journeys, and his response was dismissive. “Women don’t need to make the journey [...] All [she] has to do is realize she’s the place people are trying to get to.” [3] Murdock, understandably, was not pleased with this response.
“The answer stunned me; I found it deeply unsatisfying. The women I know and work with do not want to be there, the place that people are trying to get to. They do not want to embody Penelope, waiting patiently, endlessly weaving and unweaving. They do not want to be handmaidens of the dominant male culture giving service to the gods. They do not want to follow the advice of fundamentalist preachers and return to the home. They need a new model that understands who and what a woman is.” (Murdock, 2)
Murdock’s model of The Heroine’s Journey proposes an alternative, one meant to center women’s unique experiences. Following Campbell’s structural model, Murdock divides her book into sections, each examining a stage of the journey (Murdock, vii-ix):
1. Separation from the Feminine
2. Identification with the Masculine
3. The Road of Trials
4. The Illusory Boon of Success
5. Strong Women Can Say No
6. The Initiation and Descent to the Goddess
7. Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine
8. Healing the Mother/Daughter Split
9. Finding the Inner Man with Heart
10. Beyond Duality
Since the publication of The Heroine’s Journey, many creators have produced works featuring female protagonists an
d have centered the unique experiences of women as Murdock set out to do with her model. Examples include Buffy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Beatrix Kiddo aka Black Mamba of Kill Bill (based on The Bride); Sarah Connor of the Terminator franchise; Elsa and Anna of Frozen; and Katniss Everdeen of the Hunger Games.
A common thread in many of these examples is the importance of family, friendship, and the women striving for a return to some kind of normalcy or balance at the end of their tales. There are, of course, also differences that speak to the uniqueness of each woman’s journey.
Buffy’s series ends with a sense of continuing adventures to come, which is more in line with the Hero’s Journey model, as will be shown later. Childcare is not a factor in Elsa and Anna’s journey in Frozen (unless you count Olaf the snowman), though their bond as sisters is at the heart of the story. Similarly, Katniss’s desire to protect her younger sister prompts her initial journey in the Hunger Games series. Teamwork, friendship, and the importance of family as seen in these stories are values traditionally associated with the feminine.
Although Labyrinth was released in 1986, prior to the publication of The Heroine’s Journey, it encompasses many of the feminine qualities Murdock set out to highlight — an inward-facing journey that teaches the heroine about herself, a focus on family, and the importance of friendships. It remains an excellent example of the Heroine’s Journey model; as stated earlier, it is one of the few movies among the pantheon of 1980s fantasy movies to put a female character front and center, and allows her to be an active participant in her own story.
Entering the Labyrinth
Labyrinth draws upon fairy tales for its overall aesthetic, as well as elements of its plot. Fairy tales themselves frequently offer examples of the Heroine’s Journey model. Shortly before the inciting incident that beging her journey — the fateful wish that causes her step-brother Toby to be stolen by the Goblin King — Sarah invokes fairy tales directly as she bemoans her situation.
“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child, and wanted everything to himself and the young girl was practically a slave. But what no one knew is that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers. So one night, when the baby had been particularly cruel to her, she called on the goblins for help!” (Labyrinth)
With this invocation of fairy tales, Sarah embarks on the first stage in the Heroine’s Journey. She rejects the traditionally feminine activity of childcare, while also rejecting and separating herself from her step-mother — Murdock’s The Terrible Mother/the Negative Feminine (Murdock, 18).
Sarah’s association with the masculine, the second stage of the Heroine’s Journey, takes two forms — in her embrace of the typically masculine activity of setting off on an adventure/rescue mission, and the allies she chooses along the way. Hoggle, Ludo, and Didymus are all male. As Murdock describes it:
“During the second stage of the heroine’s journey a woman wishes to identify with the masculine or to be rescued by the masculine. When a woman decides to break with established images of the feminine she inevitably brings the traditional hero’s journey. She puts on her armor, mounts her modern-day steed, leaves loved ones behind, and goes in search of the golden treasure.” (Murdock, 36).
The guides and allies the heroine looks to in this stage of the journey are inevitably masculine, or aligned with traditionally male characteristics, for example, an older, or childless, woman who fits the lone hero archetype.
With her male allies in place, and her traditionally feminine responsibilities left behind, Sarah embarks on the third phase of the Heroine’s Journey, The Road of Trials. This is the Labyrinth itself, which also encompasses the Illusion of Success. After making initial progress, Sarah gets cocky and tells Jareth, the Goblin King, that his Labyrinth is “a piece of cake.” He accordingly ups the difficulty, setting new and more terrifying obstacles in her path, which in turn causes Hoggle to temporarily abandon her out of fear.
The next phase of the Heroine’s Journey is Strong Women Can Say No. After biting into a drugged peach, Sarah falls into a crystal ball given to her by Jareth. Inside the ball, she sees what her life could be like, dancing with him, wearing beautiful clothing, and having her every wish fulfilled. As Jareth tells her when he first gives her the crystal, all she has to do is give up on Toby to have her dreams come true:
“It’s a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby.” (Labyrinth)
Sarah is tempted by Jareth’s offer. It is exactly what she wanted at the beginning of the movie; however, her journey has changed her. She refuses him, fleeing the illusion he’s built for her, and breaks free from the crystal.
It is a step toward Sarah growing up, putting aside her fantasy, and putting Toby’s needs ahead of her own. However, even though she wins free from Jareth’s trap, she has another choice to face in the Initiation/Descent to the Goddess phase of the journey. Sarah breaks free from the crystal only to fall into the underworld of the junkyard where she meets the Junk Lady, a Goddess/Crone figure. Like Jareth, the Junk Lady tempts Sarah with a variation on her heart’s desire. She shows Sarah a vision of her room back home, where she is surrounded by her toys, and offers Sarah the opportunity to stay a child forever, rather than being saddled with the adult responsibility of caring for her baby brother.
Murdock’s Encounter with the Goddess describes a mature woman coming face to face with her sexuality, and her choice to embrace motherhood, or not, and her general relationship to her body and her femininity:
“During the descent, a woman faces a period of introversion or depression [...] She may feel homeless, orphaned, in a place of in-between. Like both Demeter and Inanna, she will bear no fruit... She may feel naked and exposed, arid, sexless, raw.” (Murdock, 105)
While Sarah is a younger protagonist, and her encounter with the Junk Lady does not map exactly to this stage of the Heroine’s Journey as outlined by Murdock, the essential choice Sarah must make is the same. What is her relationship to the potentially nurturing/mothering side of her personality? Will she cut out and deny one part of her life (Toby) to dwell exclusively in a world of fantasy and dreams? This marks the beginning of Sarah’s Reconnection with the Feminine, and the point where she must choose whether or not to care for her brother or abandon him.
Through her encounter with the Junk Lady, Sarah learns something about herself. She doesn’t want to stay a child forever, and she’s ready to take the adult action of placing someone else’s needs above her own.
Sarah’s completion of the last stages of the Heroine’s Journey focuses primarily on Reconnecting with the Feminine, and living Beyond Duality. After facing down her temptations, and learning about herself, Sarah returns safely home with Toby, and ultimately finds a way to balance both sides of her personality. Even though she’s growing up, the friends she made inside the Labyrinth appear to her in her mirror, assuring her that when she needs them, all she has to do is call. They are a part of her life, just as Toby is a part of her life. She can be a good big sister without having to give up everything she loves.
Thus, the Heroine’s Journey is complete. Sarah has grown as a person, vanquished demons both real and metaphorical, carried out a rescue, and experienced a true adventure.
The Limits of the Heroine’s Journey
When held up against Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey, Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey certainly expands the archetype by addressing uniquely feminine concerns. However, the model is still limited, taking for granted that certain questions or challenges will be universal to all women, and reinforcing a strong male/female binary that fails to account for the full spectrum of gender and sexuality.
In his essay “Essential Differences in the Gay Hero’s Journey,” Lloyd Meeker gives an example
that illustrates the problematic nature of assuming any model of journey can convey a universal experience:
“When the gay hero’s sexuality, or some other core aspect of his internal life, drives the story Separation from the World takes on deeper meaning, because a gay hero separates from the world before puberty. He discovers he’s an outsider in the heteronormative world. The difference this makes to a gay hero’s journey is massive...” [4]
Meeker’s example is specific to gay men; however, the principle can be applied equally to any marginalized identity. Campbell’s claim that his model is inclusive of all humanity ignores that there are very real lived experiences for marginalized individuals that are simply not shared — and sometimes simply not even seen — by someone like Campbell. The life experience of straight, white, able-bodied, cis males is largely accepted as the default and the norm, even today. Someone living inside that framework may well see their experience as universal, and that view would largely be affirmed by the media available for them to consume.
This blind spot of Campbell’s is one of the things Murdock set out to address in her work, showing there are some experiences that are unique to women which Campbell’s model does not take into account. However, Murdock’s model is not without blind spots as well. It also focuses on a particular segment of the female population and does not address all identities and intersectionalities within the subset of women.