Date of Award
Spring 5-11-2012
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Martina Sciolino
Advisor Department
English
Abstract
‘Monomyth’ is the term coined by James Joyce and popularized by Joseph Campbell in his seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Its structure is delineated by Campbell, and it follows that of the traditional heroic myths that permeate human culture and history. Margaret Atwood’s two companion novels, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, incorporate Campbell’s monomyth and transplant it into the realm of postmodern dystopia. In this way, Atwood offers an escape from the existential dilemmas that face the postmodern subjectivity through the self-perpetuated, neo-shamanic journey toward the recognition of immanence. The monomyth bridges this immanence with the separateness of the physical world, embodied by the individual hero, and thus the monomyth functions as a tool for understanding human existence.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Hoffman, Sarah, "The Hero’s Journey: A Postmodern Incarnation of the Monomyth" (2012). Honors Theses. 39.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/39