~ A Heroine's Mythic Journey ~
A Character Arc of Female Sexuality

The Adventure of Romance

The Hero's Journey just doesn't work when writing a Romance.

Campbell’s Mythic Cycle, and Vogler’s Writer's Journey patterns are male-centric. Romance is a only Stage in their patterns – not a story all by itself. Neither author considered Romance important enough to be an adventure of its own.

And it pissed me off.

So, I set out to find the Pattern for Romance the same way THEY did.

I backtracked through the myths & fairy tales, to find the earliest stories that dealt with love & romance, and then broke everything down into stages the way Campbell did. After working out the mythic stages, I viewed a stack of movies and read a stack of books to modernize from the mythic, the way Vogler did.

There ARE differences between the modern & the mythic.
What was vitally important THEN is not quite as important now.

To my great delight, I discovered that Modern Love follows the same pattern as the old myths, the motivations are the same. However, the Mythic "Happily Ever After" is only vaguely related to the Modern HEA, though they follow the same stages to get there.

WHY Romance?
Because Romances are far more influential than you might think. They cover one important issue that is found nowhere elsel:

PHYSICAL Intimacy & the Importance of TRUST

Nowhere in Campbell's "Hero's Journey" is any of this covered.
Vogler drops romance in as Reward - usually followed by the lover's Betrayal.

Nowhere in popular movies is this story told - except in fairy tale movies meant for children.
Nowhere are the vital issues of sexual love and trust dealt with - but in the common Romance.

>^..^<

~ Of Love & Romance ~

I have heard this so many times that I am ready to commit murder most foul:

"Romances are not literature."
"Romances don't say anything meaningful, beyond 'let's fall in love'."
"Romances serve no purpose beyond entertainment."
"Romances are pornographic stroke fiction for women."
"Why do you read that crap?"

If this is your opinion, then YOU are not looking deep enough.
The origins of the Romance goes very deep…deep into the past, deep into the first stories ever written, deep into the dawn of time and the creation of the world - before the male god came. Back during the ice age when the ancient world worshipped god - as a woman.

But the world is different now, and all that is left of those ancient woman myths - is the Romance. Most girls receive their first Romance novels from their mothers. There's a reason for this. To uncover the true meaning of why the Romance is so vitally important to every woman that read it, is buried deep within the psyche - in fact: Psyche and Eros.

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Psyche & Eros
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The fairy tale of Psyche and Eros - Consciousness and Sexual Love - is a story that comes from Greek myth. This tale explains quite graphically that in order to have sexual love - Eros - you must first be conscious - Psyche - of what it is you want and then deliberately go after it. You must hold a candle up to what you think you have, and see it for what it truly is to know if this is what you want for yourself - then claim it.

Is Love painful?
To a woman, very. From the loss of a woman's virginity to the birth of a child - sexual love brings pain.

Is Love bestial?
Definitely. For all beasts have sex.

Is Love beautiful?
Oh yes, for desire is born of a craving for that one climactic moment that can only be described as ecstasy.

Beauty and the Beast…

Everyone - male and female - knows that true bliss can only be had with true love, which comes from trust.

And every woman's story of sex begins with: Betrayal.

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Abandonment
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The father betrays the daughter's trust when he turns from her at puberty. He abandons her for he cannot love her as he did before - for her blooming sexuality comes between them. Their love is no longer perfect for her secrets come between them: the secret (sacred?) blood that flows signaling the onset of maturity - and the sudden uncontrollable and animalistic physical body's desire to breed.

Where does the daughter turn? To the only guide that defines what love is supposed to be: Romances.

In the fairy tale:
Beauty's father returns with a rose - the symbol of passion's kiss - and he gives it to her saying: "I have given you away." And so, she is betrayed.

And into the wasteland she is cast.

On the back of a horse - the symbol of masculine sex - she rides her beast-guide to face uncertain doom.

Doom in the traditional sense means both Death and Destiny.

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Within the Labyrinth
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Cut off from her father's love, a daughter has little to guide her but advice. It is up to her to decide if what she has been told has merit. There are many, many dangers in this world for the young woman newly come into her sexual awareness, (Eros and Psyche.) And so like anyone who wanders in the labyrinth of social interaction she dons the only armor provided - knowledge and education. The trappings of the male hero set on his quest.

Education is no preparation for a young woman trying to discover if the risk of sex and love is worth taking. There is only one way to find out - but this means yielding to the beast within their bodies, this means allowing themselves to be stripped of everything they know and devoured by the desire within them. This means allowing themselves to be stripped to the skin and taken - ruined - by a lover.

And so she must decide:
To trust, or not to trust?
That is the question.
Could this be another betrayal?

In the fairy tale:

Beauty wanders the labyrinthine castle of the Beast and sees many wonders.

Every night the Beast asks: "Will you give yourself to me?"

Beauty denies him, but he becomes less frightening as every day passes. She comes to have an understanding for what he is, and what he is not. She comes to sympathize with his painful loneliness, his need to be loved as he is; for she too is lonely and desires to be loved. And his roses - passion's kisses - are so very beautiful. Perhaps remaining with him would not be so very bad after all.

But she is unsure. There are issues at home that must be dealt with first. There is a betrayer that must be faced - and punished - for forcing her out of his safe world and into this labyrinth of terror and desire.

So Beauty asks to leave - but she will return, for she has come to want what the Beast has to offer.

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Facing the Door of Razors
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Sex for a female is a painful life and death decision.

To boys, sex is entertainment. It brings no pain, only pleasure. He can choose to be responsible for his actions or not. Either way, his body goes through no transformation. Sexually Ttransmitted Diseases not withstanding, his life is never at risk.

To girls sex is babies. Pregnancy can kill. Broken trust brings madness. First sex is always painful, physically and emotionally. She must trust her lover to give herself to his taking.
Trust opens her to betrayal.

Think of your own first sexual experience.
How were you betrayed?

Once a woman has tasted the fruit of passion she is changed. After passion's willing embrace, suddenly all is revealed. Psyche holds up the candle and sees Eros for what he is - beautiful and beastly - and deadly. Now she knows, and now her body knows - and it wants.

She comes to recognize the beast within herself.

In the fairy tale:
The Beast grants Beauty leave to go home - but she must sacrifice herself to have it. She must first give herself (or swear to give herself) to the Beast for he will not let her go without tasting what he has come to desire: her love, her trust, her body.

Beauty agrees to his demands.

At the doorway to home, she holds up the candle of Psyche and sees what she has become. She is not the same person who entered the labyrinth. The essence of the beast lies within her. There is no mistaking where she has been.

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Return from the Abyss
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Once a girl is no longer a virgin, she must face her parents, but especially her father. She must face her betrayer. He cast her aside and forced her to find another who would love her. Did he do it out of love? Has he suffered for his crime of abandonment? But more importantly, can he still love her as she is now - a sexual beast with hungers that must be fed?

One of two things happens: Acceptance or Denial.
And she must deal with the answer her betrayer gives her.

Acceptance of her sexual awakening (Psyche/Eros) allows her to bestow forgiveness.

Denial of her sexual awakening (Psyche/Eros) means she must cut herself off, close the door, murder her childhood love and bury it in the rich earth of the past with perhaps a marker or a keepsake to show where it had once been. Or slay her self (psyche) in an effort to win him back - which leads to madness and death.

Both paths lead to mourning and then cleansing.
Childhood is wrapped in tissue paper and saved for later as a treasure to be given to her own daughter. Or it is utterly destroyed.

And then it is time to return and learn to live with her beast.

Loneliness and denial of the beast within can kill. It is a madness that drives young women to drink, drugs, sexual abuse and suicide - all to satisfy a bestial hunger that can only be sated with loving trust.

In the fairy tale:

"You live in this world now," says the Beast. "You are changed. You must return to me, for I, who lives within you, shall surely die."

Beauty returns and forgives her father, for he has suffered mightily - but she cannot stay. This is not her home anymore.

Her father tries to keep her - he tries to remake her into what she once was.

But Beauty has a Beast and death will come if she does not return to him. She wraps her childhood trinkets away and kisses her father good-bye.

When Beauty finally returns as she has promised, rewarding his trust, she discovers that her beast is love.

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The Mythic Origins of Romance
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The story of True Love was defined back in the Mythic era, as were all other hero tales. Joseph Campbell exquisitely detailed the Hero's Cycle in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but he defines only one half of the race.

Nowhere does he define The Heroine with a Thousand Tears.

But the tale IS there.
In fact this is one of the first stories ever written - the story of Innana from Mesopotamia, the cradle of Civilization. A later rendition of this same story is the Greek "Rape of Persephone" and again as the Roman "Psyche and Eros".

~ The Story ~

Both Innana & Persephone have pretty much the same story. It all starts with the loss of a loved one and/or a trusted man's betrayal. Innana goes in response to a family death - death is a betrayal of abandonment. Zeus, Persephone's father simply allows Hades to take her.

And so, cast out or kidnapped, the heroine sets out to deal with the situation with what weapons and armor she has.

When the heroine enters the underworld labyrinth, (willingly or unwillingly) she is stripped and devoured by the goddess of death - a ravening beast of a woman, representing unbridled and violent sexuality.

There are versions where the heroine is killed and hung out to dry, (Inanna) another where she's a pampered consort, (Persephone) and still another version has the heroine working for the beast/goddess as a slave. (Eros & Psyche - In this myth both Eros and his mother Aphrodite play the sex-beast).

Somebody upstairs panics and starts trying to get her back. Unfortunately, the only thing that will free the heroine is: the beast herself, and that means somebody has to figure out what it is the beast really wants.

In all cases the beast is suffering from Loneliness. The beast/goddess wants to be loved. Sometimes a helper upstairs figures this out; sometimes it's the heroine herself.

Sympathy for the beast-woman is expressed, and the heroine is allowed to revive / return - under a condition. The heroine must return or supply a substitute - a sacrifice.

The heroine makes her promise and begins her journey back to the surface. But the heroine has seen the darkness and assumed a part of it into herself, usually involving a second betrayal, (pomegranate seeds anyone?) So, when she comes out of the labyrinth, she's not a pretty sight, in fact she's near bestial herself. There is no hiding where she has been.

The heroine goes home to find: her betrayer. One of two things happens - if he is unworthy, she kills him. If he has suffered because of his betrayal she forgives him. Either way, the betrayer suffers.

After that, the heroine wraps up her affairs, and willingly returns to the labyrinth or somebody else willingly goes in her place - and the beast isn't lonely any more.
The end.

Think carefully. Where have you heard this story before?
Try these on for size:

Beauty & the Beast

Red Riding Hood

East of the Sun West of the Moon

Vasalisa & Baba Yaga

Mother Holle (Mother Holy?)

 

>^..^<

The Filthy TRUTH about Real Sex & Real Love
Sexuality = Need for Love? NOT!

I have had more than one woman read this article and complain bitterly that this cycle implies that a woman can't live without a man's love.

If that's the message you came away with - YOU are Not Paying Attention!

This cycle is about:
Accepting the Body's Need for Physical Love.

Accepting that you are Sexual
- does NOT mean you Need someone to Love.

This isn't the Victorian Era where people died of old age while still virgins. This is the modern Era where sooner or later Everyone Has Sex.

Acceptance of one's Sexual Nature does NOT mean that they MUST find someone to Love. One does not need a Significant Other to be Sexual. I don't have a Significant Other in my life and I'm Quite sexual, thank you very much.

Oh, and while we're at it:
Physical attraction does not mean you are in love.
(Guys already know this.)

The acceptance of ones sexual nature - Male or Female - means the acceptance of the Physical Body's driving needs. It means accepting the fact that your body is an animal, like every other fur-wearing critter out there. And All animals have the same Physical needs - Food, Shelter and Sex.

You think all those copulating animals KNOW they're getting pregnant? Not Hardly! They just know that it's that time again where they get to make whoopee! Puppies and kittens are just that other thing that happens in the spring.

Humans, clever beings that we are, know how to avoid pregnancy and STDs, so we can enjoy our Sexuality without having kittens in the spring. Isn't that nice?

The point of this Mythic Cycle:

If you are going to have sex, TRUST who you have it with!
Because there are ALWAYS Consequences!
- Physical and Emotional.

Tell me again that Romances serve no purpose.
I Dare you.

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The Stages of the Heroine's Mythic Journey
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How to use this for Writing:
The heroic cycle is best used as a guide for Character Arc, describing the emotional lessons learned in addition to the events (plot) that occur in a story.

Unlike the traditional heroic journey, my Heroine's journey focuses on the mythic cycle of the female, or more precisely, her introduction - and acceptance - of her sexual nature.

- Abandoned
Something emotionally important is stolen or destroyed
Betrayal by a loved one - father / brother / lover
Into the Wasteland - Donning armor and sword
The beast guide - hidden sexuality

- Within the Labyrinth
Stripped & Devoured by the beast/goddess - dark sexuality
Trapped / Enslaved / Suffering - Serving the Beast
Recognition - Sympathy for the Beast
Bargaining for release - Promise to return

- Facing the Door of Razors
Submission / Sacrifice / Death - Transformation is begun
Escape / Rescue - following the beast out
Seduction / Betrayal at the last gate - transformation is completed
Release / Reborn - as a Devouring Goddess

- Return from the Abyss
Confronting the Betrayer - Revenge / Forgiveness
Mourning / Cleansing / Acceptance - goodbye to the past
Willing Sacrifice - Welcoming the beast
Balance - beast and woman

>^..^<

Morgan Hawke
Author of Erotic Romance - and damn proud of it.
All rights reserved. All Wrongs revenged.
(C) 2006