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 9th 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 article focuses on the elements called Benefit and Atonement.
The Hero’s Reward or Benefit
In his seminal book on mythology and the hero’s journey, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes of the hero, “When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward.” Toward the end of the journey, when the hero is returning home or to a place of rest and reunion, he or she is rewarded for facing so many challenges.
When writers consider this element of the journey, they can ask: What reward will my hero most appreciate or deserve? What wisdom has the hero learned that will be a benefit to the people? In traditional stories, the hero often brings safety, security, and freedom to the people he or she abandoned in order to take the journey. Also, the hero gains a greater sense of self-awareness and wisdom that will guide him or her on any future endeavors.
The Hero’s Atonement with the Father
Campbell also notes, “The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage): or “his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement).” Thus, after the reward, or in response to it, the next element of the hero’s journey falls into place: atonement.
This pattern of atonement has religious overtones, especially when one considers the parable of the prodigal son. This archetype is ever-present in the literature, stories, and cultures of all peoples: A child separates from the parents and goes on a journey of self-testing, and in the end, the child reunites with those same parents and – more specifically – reconciles with the father.
Writers often include this element in their stories through the use of an actual father character or another male character who represents the father or an object or idea that also represents a reconciliation with the father.
In Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein, on his death bed, Victor Frankenstein confesses his faults to Captain Robert Walton, a substitute for the father that Victor has forsaken on his vainglorious, futile bid for glory. With this father, he is able to share the “reward” of his journey – which is the awareness of the tragic nature of overwhelming ambition. But the atonement can also be a scene of beauty, depending on the nature of the writer’s story.
For the 8 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 last article in this series, see:
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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