When using the archetypal pattern of the hero’s journey to structure a story, writers can carefully look through the elements and design their characters and story around those elements. This article is the 8th in a series that explains how to use the hero’s journey pattern in writing a story. Each article explains one or more elements of the journey. This one focuses on the element called Apotheosis.
One of the main things that heroes of fiction, myth, film and real life learn along the path of living is this: The world does not hold us. We hold the world. We have the source of life and nourishment within ourselves.
Defining Apotheosis
“Apotheosis,” according to Joseph Campbell, is the “pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance.” The hero has been challenged and come through the challenges and has a new perspective on life.
Campbell says, ‘When the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change.” The traditional point of almost any story is to have the hero change. “This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain—through herohood.”
Apotheosis in Psyche and Eros
In the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros, Psyche begins to feel this divinity after two challenges - filling the cup and finding the fleece. She still has two challenges left, yet a change is taking place. She is growing into herself, a new self, a self that holds the paradox of her mortal fears and her immortal desires.
As she grows into her power, she may begin to see the way she is affecting reality. Her ability to take action on her own behalf leads to a fuller life, which leads to more opportunities for fulfillment for all of those around her.
Writing about Apotheosis
To include this element in their stories, writers can benefit by doing a brainstorming exercise about their heroes and their sense of the world around them. One way to do this is to consider the earth’s powers or elements. Which one calls to the hero or main character in your story?
Will your character gain power through air – through speaking and communication and the ability to command his or her own breath, words and thoughts? Will the character master fire and creativity, the passions of the heart and the desire to persevere? Will water and its powers of transforming and shaping the earth and its inhabitants be the character’s focus? Or will earth, the physical world, be what the character gains wisdom with?
Writers can consider: Which combination of the elements is important to your character and the story's unfolding plot? In what way should the hero become god-like?
For the 7 preceding articles in this series see:
Journey in Words: The Hero Pattern as Writing Guide
Journey in Words: The Writing Year with the Hero’s Journey
Journey in Words: The Call to Adventure and the Refusal
Journey in Words: Supernatural Aid and Crossing the 1st Threshold
Journey in Words: Belly of the Whale
Journey in Words: Road of Trials
Journey in Words: Meeting with the Goddess
For the next article in this series, see:
Journey in Words: Benefit and Atonement
Reference:
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New World Library, 2008.
Shaun Perkins - Shaun Perkins, teacher, poet, storyteller, porch-sitter, beekeeper, gardener, writer, has been a high school and university teacher for ...
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