The Ultimate Hero Is The Heroine

For years, I read Joseph Campbell’s works with awe and love and appreciated his spellbinding work that drew myths together from around the world. His mythic images of plants and animals, his universal truths and his palpable enthusiasm for the journey of life intrigued and educated me.

Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey

But, Campbell discussed a man’s journey.

He was very clear about it, saying that the hero is the one who seeks and the woman embodies that which is sought. I’m paraphrasing, but basically he described a man’s life journey through phases that became what he termed “the hero’s journey,” and he (understandably) wasn’t quite sure what the woman’s journey could be.

He seemed to feel she was the destination and was not someone who experienced a journey herself.

As a woman, I know I am inherently part of the global phenomenon of myth. I know that together, the male and the female can create form from formlessness, as many ancient origin stories describe.

In other words, it takes both.

The Heroine’s Journey is as powerful and life-changing as the hero’s and it's important for our girls to have role models for their life journeys.

The myth of the German girl Madchen who jumps down the well to collect her dropped spinning wheel celebrates domesticity because she ends up with Mother Winter and must do household chores to become a strong woman. But it also is the landscape for the girl’s transformative adventure, especially since her stepsister follows her to Mother Winter’s home and doesn’t do a damn thing.

Ethics and story morals aside, it’s the tale of a girl becoming a woman. It's symbolic of a life journey.

Female Role Models in Myths and Tales

If we look deeper at the tales of girls struggling, we find they are actually stories of success. Girls are finding solutions, mapping their landscapes, solving problems.

Consider the feminine journey of Vasalisa, a young girl at puberty whose stepmother tells her to leave home, trek through the deep forest and ask the Forest Witch for embers for their fire. There is so much symbolism here that I’m giddy to explain it, but it’s all discussed in the book Once Upon A Place.

Suffice it to say, the heroine’s journey is clear in Vasalisa's trigger from home, her adventure through the Abyss of the Forest (a Mythic Setting of transformation), and her encounter with Baba Yaga. It even has the image of the Guide, a doll gifted from her mother, so we’ve got feminine energies of love and compassion mixed with feminine energies of control and power in the Forest Witch – both of which are necessary for a heroine on her journey.

Clearly, it’s incorrect to assume that boys and men are the only ones who change, must pursue answers, and tackle obstacles in order to mature. Girls grow into women in much the same way, though our challenges are often different.

The Heroine’s Journey Today

Writers today must use every writer's tool available to express the magnitude of transformation girls and women experience. The landscapes are metaphorical tools that help writers develop character arcs with which readers can relate, grapple, and question. I'm not suggesting writers put women in the same circumstances as men and call it good; quite the contrary, feminine challenges are unique and require a strong writer to coax the nuances and struggles from the page.

My book is the landmark text exploring Mythic Settings for writers of epics, quests and fantasy. All writers of fiction and even memoir can use the ideas in the book to explore character transformation, develop strong plots, and build robust landscapes so the story will thrive.

Holly Bellebuono teaches Mythic Settings and Sense of Place for fiction writers, and leads writing retreats.

Her landmark book Once Upon A Place: Forests, Caverns and Other Place of Transformation in Myths, Fairy Tales and Film is the first to identify mythic landscapes used in fantasy writing and is available from your favorite bookstores and also as an audiobook. Click here for Holly's Speaker Sheet.