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 7th 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 Meeting with the Goddess.
The Goddess Defined
In his famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell says this of the goddess: “She is the incarnation of the promise of perfection; the soul’s assurance that, at the conclusion of its exile in a world of organized inadequacies, the bliss that once was known will be known again.”
This line shows the importance of this element in stories from around the world. The goddess is life itself and also “death of everything that dies.” In fact, Campbell notes, “The whole round of existence is accomplished within her sway, from birth, through adolescence, maturity, and senescence, to the grave.” The goddess is both the womb and the tomb.
Writing This Element into a Story
To meet with this woman or an idea or object that represents her is a test and an achievement for the hero. To ask advice of the goddess is to keep gaining the wisdom and experience needed to continue to meet the challenges and tasks ahead. In the Psyche and Eros myth, Psyche’s advice from Aphrodite helped her stay on her path and gain perspective on her hero’s journey.
A writer might benefit in brainstorming about this element by composing a letter to a goddess from the hero of the writer’s story. In this letter, the hero can pick a person or deity who has been or might still be that “promise of perfection” in his or her life. The character can ask the goddess what he or she yearns to know about the journey. The goddess can respond as she will. Doing a bit of research on a particular goddess will help the writer formulate the answers to his or her hero's questions.
For the six 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
For the next 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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