Why the Campbellian Heroes Journey Structure doesn't work for me and a Review of Sound of Music

1. This article entitled The inbetweeners: life of the middle child by Sri Lankan writer Roshi Fernando -articulates well something that always bugged me about Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, and explains why I never could adapt my own stories to its structure or for that matter most of the stories that I've loved. (Thank you to oursin for the link and reference.)

As a writer, the singular journey of one hero goes against my nature. I was trying to change the world with my first book, Homesick, which I wrote as interlinked short stories: each story was about an individual who belonged to a larger community that was affected and changed by each story. At least, I was trying to challenge one of the structures of the world: story structure. Creative writing classes teach the Joseph Campbell myth of The Hero's Journey. If you are new to it, it is a simple, circular structure: the hero is called to adventure, given the help of a mentor and an antagonist, crosses a number of thresholds and is challenged and tempted until he reaches an abyss of revelation, experiences rebirth where he is transformed, atonement is sought and he returns to his original life renewed. In Hollywood, this structure has often meant only one hero is followed. Story structure has been taken over by the single person's need to conquer the world, to take the selfie on the top of the mountain. I was trying to adapt this structure, as I told people, earnestly: look, stories are not about single people. I wanted to write about everyone.

It's that first sentence ..."As a writer, the singular journey of one hero goes against my nature." Then, why, "stories are not about single people". Human beings like are not are social animals. Even those of us who tend be a little bit like hermits in our lifestyle, need others and are affected by others. How we interact with others and how they view us - informs our character and who we are.

Joseph Campbell's somewhat narrow and overly simplistic view of the structures of the myths that he has analyzed always grated a bit. Having studied folklore and mythology, myself, and having analyzed it, I felt Campbell was missing something crucial to the story he was analyzing and applying such a simplistic structure to. As if he was placing the story into a tiny box, and cutting off all the corners and edges until it fit inside his tiny box.
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2. Finished watching The Sound of Music - which is not as good as the movie, although that was pretty much a given going into it. But it's okay for a television production. Nothing to write home about or squee over, but okay. No mistakes are made. No pratfalls. Everyone was on key, more or less. IT was in short, an average production of an average adaptation of a beloved musical.

I'm not sure why they chose it (outside of the fact that is amongst the few musicals that works for the entire family) - it doesn't lend itself well to live a televised theatrical production. Yhere are bits of staging that felt awkward and the story just plods in places. While the film adaptation managed to liven it up with a puppet show - singing through the streets of Vienna, and a bit more conflict in the beginning with Maria and the children, and in the middle with Maria and Gaylord, the televised version doesn't appear to know what to do and spends a lot of time with people just awkwardly chatting. ( Read more... )