The Hero's Journey

A story is the most powerful way to communicate a message and people repeat the same stories over and over to relate to each other and be part of the same shared history. For example, many stories of American slavery have been repeated to inform different generations about the injustices that occurred and allow the different generations to share the same history and experiences. From Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the 1850’s to Alex Haley’s Roots in 1976 and to 12 Years a Slave in 2013, the repeated story of the atrocities of slavery still creates united empathy among its audiences. Stories that get repeated are typically entertaining, informative, have proven success with the audience and is based on what the writer knows.

Typically, a good story that people want to hear makes them feel better about themselves and gives them inspiration. People want the protagonist to be knocked down because no one likes a perfect character. They empathize with the protagonist when bad things happen to them, but then they want the protagonist to prevail so they can feel good and have hope that they may prevail in their own lives, too. This repeated story pattern has been described by Joseph Campbell in his monomyth theory called the Hero’s Journey. Author Christophe Booker also theorizes that there are only seven basic story plots that are repeated in books and movies over and over: overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, and tragedy, many of which fit the monomyth storyline. The monomyth is a timeless story structure that has been used for thousands of years, from Gilgamesh to the Odyssey to Star Wars. However, even though the repeated monomyth story creates predictability for stories, people still are entertained by the different ways that characters follow the Hero’s Journey. And maybe predictability is another reason why the same stories are repeated. Predictability of stories allows people to feel control over the world and see patterns

There have been discoveries of cave paintings from our ancestors that predate modern times by millions of years, these paintings tell the stories of the day to day events of their times and communicate, even when they didn’t have a language to write. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a very early work of writing, dating back over 4000 years. It is one of the earliest recovered works of literature that maintains a story with a consistent plot. We continue to publish and read it today to learn, as well as to make connections to our ancestors. Today we continue the tradition with writing and communication to relay our history. From generation to generation the stories have survived, and continue to teach us vital information. People remember entertaining stories much better than just hearing facts and figures and, therefore, people tell and repeat stories to pass on important information and lessons. For example, it’s much more likely for a person to remember and relate to the story plots in Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers than the timelines and death rates of the Invasion of Normandy in World War II learned in history class. We don’t continue to repeat just for amusement, though it may seem that way, we repeat them as stepping stones to continue our intellectual growth. As Winston Churchill once said,