The Token Hero’s Journey: Reconceptualizing the Literary Hero

Abstract

Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, or the Hero’s Journey, is a series of gross constituent units which ultimately lead to the Hero status. The Journey introduced the idea of deferral in terms of attaining the Hero status. The status is bestowed on the Hero by the collective consciousness immediately upon his departure, but is deferred indefinitely by the Hero himself. The Hero is removed from the concept and turned into a token as soon as he is labeled with it. The Journey is the effort of the Hero to construct a pattern which would eventually lead to the fundamental concept of a “Hero”. The collective consciousness perceives the Hero in terms of a metonymical sequence, while the Hero advances along the metaphorical axis. The token Hero is a token of the collective consciousness which has falsely labeled him a type. This sort of conceptual structuring creates a finite continuum of “heroism”. In order to analyze the continuum of heroism, the authors constructed a tool of analysis based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s chronotope. The basic form of the chronotope was adapted so that it can represent multiple layers of the story and parallel narratives. In order to test out the tool, the authors conducted an analysis of Michael Ende’s epic fantasy The Neverending Story. The paper draws a number of implications from Bakhtin’s chronotope relevant not just to the literary world, but society at large.