Campbell's Hero Cycle and The Matrix, Part 3

A brief recap of Departure and Initiation, the first two major portions of the hero cycle [if you don't want to read Part 1, the first post, or Part 2, the second post]:

Stage 1, Call to Adventure = Meeting Trinity, who offers the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"
Stage 2, Refusal of the Call = Threatening to leave the car that will deliver him to Morpheus just because Switch wants Neo to lift his shirt
Stage 3, Supernatural Aid and Amulet = Morpheus and his red pill
Stage 4, Crossing of the First Threshold = Waking up in a goo-filled pod
Stage 5, Belly of the Whale = Getting swallowed into the steel belly of the Nebuchadnezzar
Stage 6, Road of Trials = Training aboard the Nebuchadnezzar [Martial arts matches with Morpheus, jump program, Agent-training program, etc.]
Stage 7, Meeting with the Goddess = Advice from Spoon Child
Stage 8, Woman as Temptress = The Oracle telling Neo that he is not the One
Stage 9, Atonement with the Father = Neo's realization that he does indeed share Morpheus' level of commitment
Stage 10, Apotheosis = Breaking into the high-security building to rescue Morpheus from the Agents
Stage 11, The Ultimate Boon = Successfully freeing Morpheus and returning him to the Nebuchadnezzar

To cement his identity as a hero, the adventurer must make a return to his old life. If I identify places as Neo's two realms—the Matrix as the place he leaves and the "real" world as the place of his journey—then working out the last portion of the hero cycle is quite difficult. Neo bounces between the Matrix and the "real" world each time he is plugged in/unplugged, so he has already revisited his old place of existence before The Official Big Return required at the end of the adventure.

Campbell provides a loophole, however. He says that the adventure can happen in "a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, [or] lofty mountaintop." But the cycle does not have to happen in a place necessarily. Campbell notes that the adventure can be a journey inside, a "profound dream state," and that other locations for adventures "might be multiplied, ad infinitum." So if we consider Neo's adventure as a journey of identity, it is much easier to map out the next six stages. He moves from Thomas Anderson, an ineffectual geek, to the One, a transformed being. Then, at the end of the movie, circumstances require that Neo revisit his old identity as "Mr. Anderson."

Return, Stage 12: The Refusal of the Return

Campbell says that the hero must return to complete the cycle—although he also notes that "the responsibility has been frequently refused." Apparently, the ecstasy of the adventure is so powerful that some heroes will not revisit their old existence. And why would someone who has just realized his potential for power want to go back to unhappy corporate bosses at best, handcuffs and jail time as the worst-case scenario?

After Morpheus' rescue, Neo has the opportunity to return to his old life as Thomas Anderson. This opportunity arrives after he has supervised Morpheus and Trinity's safe exit from the Matrix to the Nebuchadnezzar. Before he too can use the pay phone to escape, he sees Agent Smith on the subway platform. During his training in the "real" world, he has learned that an Agent = run like hell, and Neo glances at the stairs up to the street as he considers preserving his new life by escaping capture. This moment when he contemplates flight is his refusal to return to "Thomas Anderson," his old existence.

Return, Stage 13: Magical Flight

Campbell says that during the return, the hero is "supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron ... or complicated by ... magical obstruction." A great example of this stage is Odysseus as he journeys home to Ithaka after the war at Troy. Athena supports his return by supervising his progress and advocating for his success; Poseidon, however, thwarts his return to make Odysseus pay for blinding the Cyclops, Poseidon's son.

Each time Morpheus' crew re-enters the Matrix, someone—Tank—watches over the prostate physical bodies and advises the replugged members by phone. As we know when Cypher dispatched first Apoc, then Switch, and when Trinity and Tank almost "pulled the plug" on Morpheus after his capture, the people in the "real" world can control life and death in the Matrix. This ability gives them super-human or god-like power.

As Neo gets ready to make his own return, we find Tank, Trinity, and Morpheus at the computer monitors aboard the Nebuchadnezzar watching Neo's decisions, monitoring the rest of his transformation, and protecting his physical body under their care, thus satisfying the requirements for magical flight. Since the now defunct Cypher also had god-like power over life and death for the crew plugged into the Matrix, he can count as Neo's Poseidon. The challenges that Neo will face in this portion of the cycle resulted from the betrayal of Cypher, whose sabotage has provided the Agents with the information that they need to find not only Neo but also the Nebuchadnezzar.

Return, Stage 14: Rescue from Without

The hero may need inspiration to leave the excitement of the adventure and return to his old life. Campbell says, "The world may have to come and get him." To explain this stage to my students, I played "Get to Me" by Train. The singer recognizes that the hero is away on an adventure but begs that person to come home:

Parasail or first class mail
Get on the back of a Nightingale
Just get to me I don't care just get to me
Prokeds, mopeds take a limousine instead
They ain't cheap but they're easy to find
Get on the highway point yourself my way
Take a roller coaster that comes in sideways
Just get to me - yeah

Go on hitch a ride on the back
of a butterfly
There's no better way to fly
To get to me

Neo's rescue from without does not include a lover anxious for his return. His call back to his old life comes when Agent Smith address him with two words on the subway platform: "Mr. Anderson." Contempt drips from the Agent's voice.

Agent Smith is the authoritative suit from Neo's past in the Matrix. There on the subway platform, Neo has two options—either run from the Agent, the strategy Morpheus' crew has taught him, or confront this being who symbolizes everything wrong from Neo's old life. When Agent Smith says, "Mr. Anderson ..." just as Neo is about to bolt up the stairs, Neo hears the summons from his previous existence. Instead of fleeing that life, he faces it, armed now with the confidence and new abilities he has acquired on his adventure.

Return, Stage 15: Crossing of the Return Threshold

To cross the return threshold requires that the hero step back across the line of demarcation that separates his old life from the realm of the adventure. Campbell summarizes the stage like this: "The hero adventures out of the land we know into darkness; there he accomplishes his adventure, or again is simply lost to us, imprisoned, or in danger; and his return is described as a coming back out of the yonder zone."

When Neo engages Agent Smith in combat, he does not know his future. He may be captured, never to return to the Nebuchadnezzar. At that moment, when he fully engages his old life in the form Agent Smith, he has crossed the return threshold.



Return, Stage 16: Master of the Two Worlds

"Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division," claims Campbell, "is the talent of the master." Having mastered the realm of the adventure, the hero must now demonstrate that his old life offers no challenge that he cannot defeat.

Neo has already shown his mastery of the adventure realm when he rescues Morpheus. Engaging Agent Smith in combat transports Neo back to his old life, but he must first acclimate before he demonstrates that he is a master there as well. He wins the first battle when Agent Smith gets out-maneuvered and clobbered by the train, but it is a short-lived victory as Agent Smith finds a new receptacle, and Neo resorts to his adventure behavior and flees. In the next showdown, he momentarily loses the fight as the Agents gun him down in the hotel hallway. Trinity, however, who has access to his dying physical body on the ship, offers her love and commands action, "Now get up!" just as Athena would protect Odysseus. When Neo awakes—returning from the dead—he engages the Agents once more, this time stopping the bullets that explode from their guns and easily overcoming Agent Smith in hand-to-hand combat. In this scene, he illustrates his mastery of his old life. He can bend everything and everyone in it to his will.


Return, Stage 17: Freedom to Live

At the end of the cycle, the hero has a fuller understanding of his own potential and abilities than does the person who never accepts the call. Campbell describes the adventurer thus: "Powerful in [his] insight, calm and free in action ... the hero is the conscious vehicle of the terrible, wonderful Law, whether his work be that of butcher, jockey, or king." No matter his place in life or what he has, the hero has the confidence to continue, unburdened by the anxieties that plague his fellows who never moved through the arduous challenges of the cycle.

At the end of the movie, Neo proclaims his fearlessness and confidence in his abilities as he address the Matrix itself. He explains to the machines which once ruled him that he has transcended their control and plans to free all of the other "batteries" that they use for power. Then he demonstrates his mastery by blasting into the sky like Superman, a skill I wish he showed off less in the two inferior movies that follow.

The big problem with both Reloaded and Revolutions is that the two sequels offer no new hero cycle for the viewers to enjoy. Neo has become static, his period of growth over, and no new potential hero steps forward to begin his/her cycle.

The "Good Side" Ain't All That

During the 2004 hurricane season, my big wish was to be on the "good side" of the storm just one time. The forecasters described the "good side" as hurricane heaven; the folks who lived to the left of the eye never received warnings to run immediately to an interior room of the house and pull matresses over their heads. Here in Central Florida, we ended up on the right side, the ugly side, for three separate storms, where, because of the forward motion of the hurricane, the winds were strongest. If I hadn't bought the last battery powered radio at Target days before Charley, we would not have known when to bolt to the back hallway.

So all week as the National Hurricane Center consistently predicted that Wilma would cross the state to the south of Lake Okeechobee, I sighed with relief. For once we would be on the good side of the storm.


Well, hurricane heaven, it ain't. Wilma has not behaved as a typical storm. For one thing, as she is crossing over the state, she is bumping a cold front pushing down from the north. That cold front is interacting with the left side of Wilma, what's supposed to be the good side. So the National Weather Service has been issuing tornado warnings like these since last evening:

Late season tropical cyclones approaching Florida from the Gulf of Mexico have a greater risk of producing strong tornadoes especially when interacting with frontal boundaries.

Late season tropical cyclones moving in from the Gulf of Mexico have produced killer tornadoes in the past. If tornado warnings are issued take them seriously. The safest place is in an interior room on the lowest floor of a block home away from windows. Get under a workbench or other piece of sturdy furniture. Use blankets or pillows to cover your body.

Evacuate mobile homes or vehicles for more substantial shelter. If no shelter is available ... lie flat in the nearest ditch or other low spot and cover your head with your hands. Abandon your vehicle if the tornado is nearby.

Tornadoes at night are difficult to see. Watch for the popping of electric lines and transformers or listen for the sound of loud rumbling as that of an approaching freight train. Tornadoes are often associated with storms which also produce large hail and excessive lightning.

We still have power, which I am taking full advantage of. If we lose electricity, at least we won't be sweltering in 90+ degree heat. In fact, we are supposed to do a record drop—alas, it's been a whole season of records—from high 80s yesterday to low 40s tonight. No, I won't be sweating in a stinky house waiting for the rumble of utility company trucks; instead, I'll be taking a cold shower in 40-degree weather and getting dressed by flashlight to return to work tomorrow.

The folks to the south have it worse, I know. Here's a prayer that Wilma is the last hurricane to hit land this year.

Wilma is crossing Florida as I write this. Do you hear the chorus of "Go back to Bedrock, bitch!" from the entire state?

Campbell's Hero Cycle and The Matrix, Part 2

A brief recap of Departure, the first major portion of the hero cycle [if you don't want to read Part 1, the first post]:

Stage 1, Call to Adventure = Meeting Trinity, who offers the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"
Stage 2, Refusal of the Call = Threatening to leave the car that will deliver him to Morpheus just because Switch wants Neo to lift his shirt
Stage 3, Supernatural Aid and Amulet = Morpheus and his red pill
Stage 4, Crossing of the First Threshold = Waking up in a goo-filled pod
Stage 5, Belly of the Whale = Getting swallowed into the steel belly of the Nebuchadnezzar

Initiation, Stage 6: Road of Trials

To survive the Great Unknown, the hero must acquire new mental and physical skills. Campbell says that the hero must set aside everything he knows from his old life to "bow and submit to the absolutely intolerable" that is coming. As the hero accomplishes a series of difficult tasks, he learns to navigate the new world where he now travels.

One of the best movie scenes to illustrate Road of Trials is the harsh tutelage of Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. Daniel has left his old life, which included half-assed YMCA lessons and martial arts instruction from library books, to enter the world of organized championships where he must battle the gang of karate Nazis who are terrorizing him at school. A little too gleeful about becoming Mr. Miyagi's student, Daniel discovers that he must submit to arduous, glamorless chores like washing and waxing Mr. Miyagi's impressive collection of cars, painting the fence that surrounds his teacher's huge yard, sanding the decks, and painting the house. "You karate training!" Mr. Miyagi affirms whenever Daniel complains, so the poor boy continues to tolerate being an unpaid, barely recognized slave. When the frustrated Daniel announces that he is about to quit, Mr. Miyagi demonstrates that all of the back-breaking labor has allowed Daniel to burn into muscle memory several key defense skills that he can use to ward off an attack.

In The Matrix, Neo must also learn several things about his new existence. In the leather chair pow-wow with Morpheus, when Neo is first "re-plugged," he learns the truth about human history, that machines control the planet. After combat training downloads, Neo attempts to transcend his preconceptions about gravity and muscle strength during his fight with Morpheus and his first attempt jumping rooftops. The Agent-training program introduces Neo to the habits and dangers of the sentient programs who patrol the Matrix. When squiddies attack the Nebuchadnezzar, Neo discovers that his new life is dangerous whether he is "plugged in" or not. And the alcohol-loosened conversation with Cypher teaches Neo that not all "free" humans are happy. All of these lessons give Neo some familiarity with his new reality.

Initiation, Stage 7: Meeting with the Goddess

Having acquired enough survival skills for his new realm, the hero must "meet the goddess." In The Matrix, Morpheus decides that Neo is ready to visit the Oracle, and my students always jump on that scene in the movie to satisfy the stage. Unfortunately, the Oracle makes a better "woman as temptress," the following encounter, so meeting with the goddess has to occur before the Oracle.

Campbell describes the stage like this: "[The goddess] guides, she bids [the hero to] burst his fetters." Because the hero cycle is a path of change, a birth into a more mature existence, I believe that Campbell here means that the Goddess gives the hero some piece of advice instrumental in attaining the higher level of consciousness. If the Oracle doesn't provide this advice, who does? Who "guides" Neo? Who gives Neo the insight he needs to "burst his fetters"?

I would argue that Spoon Child does.

Campbell says that the goddess appears in a manner the hero can understand: "In the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes ... a series of transfigurations." At this point in his life, Neo has problems with authority. As a hacker in his old life, he flaunted laws. His day-job boss tells him straight out, "You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe that ... somehow the rules do not apply to you." Despite their ability to hold him in custody, Neo gives the finger to the "criminal investigators" who arrest him at work. An old, wise woman isn't the type of goddess Neo will listen to; mother-like, influential, resplendent with the awe and respect other characters like Morpheus and Trinity give her, the Oracle is someone for Neo to resist, especially since she can bind someone with the shackles of Fate. An innocent child, however, one too young to understand class or prestige or societal conventions, is exactly the person Neo would hear.

And who can say for certain that Spoon Child is male or female? Clothing and hair style don't indicate a boy or a girl. Puberty hasn't yet given away gender in the voice.

What Spoon Child does is implant the idea that nothing in the Matrix has true substance—"There is no spoon." Even if Neo can still see something, hear it, touch, taste or smell it, no item, no person, is really there. Whatever one "bends" is himself, says Spoon Child, giving the mind of the person all of the power, not his sense perceptions. As Descartes so simply noted, "I think; therefore, I am." Identity remains even when the senses are mistaken or unavailable. Once Neo internalizes this insight, he is able to stop bullets in midair, to master the Matrix. And it is this child, not the Oracle, who imparts the important insight.

Initiation, Stage 8: Woman as Temptress

Campbell believes that "woman" is the "great symbol of life," especially for "the acts of life, the organs of life," i.e., physical and material temptations such as filling the stomach, sleeping in a warm bed, and satisfying sexual urges. In this stage of the cycle, a woman appeals to the flesh and its needs in an attempt to divert the hero from his otherwise spiritual journey of growth.

Although the Oracle does not have—for Neo anyway—"loins of irresistible attraction and breasts bursting to be touched," she does have that warm, friendly kitchen and an oven full of baking cookies, items that appeal to a different organ than the penis. When she tells Neo that he isn't "the One," a look of relief crosses his face. He didn't want that responsibility any more than he wanted his old day job in the Matrix. The Oracle convinces him to leave the path, as any good temptress should do.

Initiation, Stage 9: Atonement with the Father

Campbell claims that "the ogre aspect of the father is a reflex of the [hero's] own ego." I explain the stage to students like this: A father—either biological or a strong male presence—exists in the hero's life. At the beginning of the cycle, the hero believes that he and the father are significantly different. The best film example is the Star Wars series. Luke Skywalker believes that he is incapable of corruption, but once he becomes angry enough during a light sabre fight with Darth Vader, his biological father, he himself feels the call of the powerful dark side of the Force and understands that he too has the potential to change allegiance. This understanding of the similar nature between the "son" and the "father" is the "at-one-ment" that Campbell explains for this stage.

Morpheus is, of course, Neo's father figure. Unlike Darth Vader, Morpheus symbolizes positive qualities: leadership, commitment, the ability to follow through. These qualities are antithetical to Neo at the beginning of the movie. He is a mere drone at his day-job; there is no evidence that he has family or close friends who require his presence, let alone his loyalty. Since he distrusts everyone and everything, there is no point in pursuing a single course of action. Neo might like and respect Morpheus, but he does not believe he can become a man like Morpheus.

Neo's "at-one-ment" with his "father" arrives after Morpheus has sacrificed himself, allowing his own capture by the Agents, so that Neo can escape. Trinity and Tank are about to pull Morpheus' plug aboard the Nebuchadnezzar so that the Agents cannot break into their leader's mind to steal the access codes to Zion. Neo stops them [an act of leadership] and decides to rescue Morpheus, a feat never before attempted [an act of commitment that will require follow-through]. To save Morpheus' life, Neo must call on the same qualities that Morpheus has consistently demonstrated, qualities that Neo did not realize he could actualize.

Initiation, Stage 10: Apotheosis

A hero who goes "beyond the last terrors of ignorance" will, claims Campbell, become "godlike." When Neo returns to the Matrix to rescue Morpheus from the Agents, we see a changed man. He is confident and knows what he must accomplish. He can formulate a plan of action and execute it. He is no longer hampered by doubt, lack of knowledge, or insecurities. We watch Trinity and Neo blast their way into a maximum-security building, disabling and disarming the heavily armed guards as if they were cardboard cut-outs instead of highly trained militia. If reporters rushed to the scene afterwards and interviewed survivors, I'm sure that the men who battled Trinity and Neo would claim that superhumans had caused the death and destruction.

Compare the Neo at this stage of the movie to the Neo still hooked in the Matrix and working his day job. When the Agents arrive to arrest that Neo, he looks like a scared prairie dog who has scented a wolf or mountain lion. He pokes up his head, hoping nothing will snatch him from the sky. He scurries from one cubicle to the other just like a frightened animal and cannot reason an escape once he realizes he is trapped. That Neo, the old Thomas Anderson, no longer exists, replaced instead by the more evolved being who has successfully navigated many of the stages of the hero cycle.

Initiation, Stage 11: The Ultimate Boon

The Ultimate Boon is such a difficult task that before the adventure, the hero would not have had success. Now, however, the hero accomplishes the task with "no delaying obstacle and makes no mistake." Orchestrating Morpheus' rescue satisfies this stage. Compare the Neo who will jump out of a helicopter to catch Morpheus in midair to the frightened young man who was unable to use scaffolding to climb to the roof. Compare the Neo who battles Agents, killing one version after another, with the ineffectual young man who allowed the Agents to remove his mouth and implant a "bug" in his belly. During the rescue, Neo makes no mistake: not only does he free Morpheus but he saves Trinity from the crashing helicopter. Neo insures that both Morpheus and Trinity return safely to the Nebuchadnezzar.

Coming soon ... the six stages of Return!

Campbell's Hero Cycle and The Matrix, Part 1

"I can't believe we get to see this movie in an English class," one of my students announced right before I dimmed the lights.

I had carefully prepared this moment, I thought. I had lectured for three days on the hero cycle, explaining that Carl Jung believed that each of us was "pre-wired" to appreciate the seventeen stages of the archetypal story.* I emphasized that Joseph Campbell wanted every Regular Joe—i.e., all of us in the class—to heed the call to adventure and complete the stages, that the cycle wasn't just for mythological characters like Odysseus returning home from the war in Troy. I assigned poems and short stories in the literature reader that demonstrated portions of the cycle. I showed clips of movies and played songs from different genres—rock to rap to country—to illustrate stages like "Belly of the Whale," "Atonement with the Father," and "Rescue from Without." I even made them write short pieces on how they believed episodes of their own lives matched up to responsibilities the hero must complete. Now I wanted them to see all seventeen stages represented in a single work. But if the teacher isn't showing an adaptation of Shakespeare or one of those Merchant & Ivory snooze-o-ramas, then students think that the movie is somehow inappropriate for an English class.

No matter, I won't be using The Matrix again—not because of student perception, but because this time as we watched it, I finally figured out how the movie met all of the characteristics of Campbell's hero cycle. When I have shown the film in the past, I always felt that I was fudging when we got to the stages of Return, but now I believe I can illustrate each portion of the cycle with a scene from the movie. I have tried to find someone, somewhere, on the web who has done just that, but all that I have discovered is a writer's claim that the movie meets all seventeen stages; I can't find anyone who actually does a blow-by-blow analysis.

Someone needs to try it, so here goes.

Departure, Stage 1: The Call to Adventure

The hero must first receive a "call to adventure." According to Campbell, the call is typically heard someplace remote, at the edge of the hero's known world. A herald appears, often someone dark, terrifying, or loathly, sometimes a beast. The call requires travel out of the hero's comfort zone and promises not only treasure but also danger. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell uses the frog from the Grimm Brothers story "The Frog Prince" as his example of this stage. The frog asks the princess to try a less conventional life, one that includes an amphibian as a companion. Campbell notes that a beast is "representative of the repressed instinctual fecundity within ourselves." In class, I always show the clip from Star Wars, Episode IV, when a dark-robed Obi-Wan Kenobi, who lives alone at the edge of civilization, rescues Luke Skywalker and the droids from the Sand People and invites Luke to learn the ways of the Force and help fight the Empire.

In The Matrix, Neo receives his call when his maverick computer advises him to follow the white rabbit, a cryptic message until he spots the tattoo on the shoulder of a woman at his door. He finds himself in a club where his behavior indicates his lack of comfort there at the edge of his known world: while Troy's gang sprawl on the furniture enjoying the booming music, chemical substances, and each other's company, Neo leans alone against a wall, nursing a drink—until, that is, Trinity approaches. Dressed in skin-tight black leather and moving with animal grace, Trinity, though beautiful, is reptilian, nicely meeting the qualifications of the herald and signifying Neo's "ripeness" for change. And like Obi-Wan, Trinity comes with an invitation, offering the answer to the question that drives Neo, "What is the Matrix?"

Departure, Stage 2: Refusal of the Call

Every potential hero will at first turn down the invitation to adventure. Campbell claims that too many people believe their lives are "fixed" and "to be made secure" instead of seeing their futures as "an unremitting series of deaths and births." They are unwilling to venture out of their comfort zones and face new challenges. Some people never accept the call and lose "the power of significant affirmative action."

I have always thought that the refusal of the call was also a sign of intelligence and a "balanced soul," two things the hero will need once the journey begins in earnest. In the Phaedrus, my boy Plato equates the soul with a two-horse chariot. One horse represents the appetites; all that animal wants to do is fill its belly grazing. It resents the harness and work ahead. The second horse, on the other hand, is a spirited beast, representing courage, and is straining to rush off to the battlefield. The driver who steers the chariot equals reason and should be in charge, especially if he wants to avoid flipping over as the vehicle bounces along unpaved terrain. To attain control, reason must whip the appetites into meaningful action while reining in the impulses to jump in without thinking. So if the hero immediately announced, "Okay, let's go!" when he received the call, he would be indicating that his reason was not under control [a bad way to start a dangerous adventure]. But by refusing the call, weighing the risks and benefits of the adventure, he shows that he has the intelligence to face the many challenges ahead.

At the beginning of The Matrix, Neo declines the adventure every chance he gets. When Troy invites Neo to the club, Neo says, "I can't. I have work tomorrow," although spying the white rabbit tattoo inspires Neo to change his mind. The next day, Morpheus tries by cell phone to help Neo escape the Agents who have tracked him down at work, but when Neo realizes he will have to use scaffolding to climb to the building's roof, he announces, "I can't do this" and allows the Agents to capture him. During his interrogation, when Agent Smith offers Neo a different adventure, helping to bring in the "terrorist" Morpheus, Neo turns him down as well: "How about I give you the finger and you give me my phone call." And when Switch demands that Neo remove his shirt on the way to meeting Morpheus in person, Neo almost leaves the car rather than comply. If Trinity hadn't been there to say, "You've already taken that road," the path back to his lonely apartment and sleepless nights combing the Internet, Neo might have lost his chance to complete the hero cycle.

Departure, Stage 3: Supernatural Aid

"For those who have not refused the call," claims Campbell, "the first encounter ... is with a protective figure ... who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass." Campbell also assigns these characteristics to supernatural aid: the helper is usually masculine and peripheral, a wizard, hermit, shepherd, or the like. Sometimes this supernatural aid will act as a guide who accompanies the hero on his journey. In The Matrix, Morpheus fits this role nicely. The red pill he offers is the magical charm Neo needs to start his adventure; Morpheus' continued presence ensures Neo's success during many of the stages that are to come.

Departure, Stage 4: Crossing of the First Threshold

Here in Florida, I have no problem meeting any of my needs. I know where everything is, including the cleanest Publix and the gas station with the cheapest fuel. And if construction or an accident closes a road, I can confidently arrange a detour. Florida is my area of expertise. I also know that Africa exists, though I have never been there. I have seen it depicted in film, on television, in magazines. As soon as I disembarked from a flight to Cairo, however, I would have left my comfort zone [magazines in English, restrooms at the front of the plane] and would find myself in a world where I had no skills. Sure, there would be taxis, but I wouldn't know the language to converse with the drivers. Of course there would be restaurants and hotels, but I wouldn't know the direction to go to find them. I would be outside my area of expertise.

To illustrate the crossing of the first threshold, I showed my students a 30-second clip from The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sam and Frodo are walking through a field when Frodo realizes that Sam has stopped in his tracks. Sam explains his paralysis like this: "If I take one more step, it'll be the furthest away from home I've ever been." Frodo encourages Sam to cross that imaginary division line between what Sam recognizes and the Great Unknown that awaits them both.

In The Matrix, Neo must recognize his old life even as the mirror flows down his throat. When he opens his eyes in the goo-filled pod, however, he has crossed the first threshold. Campbell describes the demarcation like this: "[The hero] comes to ... the entrance zone of magnified power. Beyond ... is darkness, the unknown, and danger." Where am I? What just happened? What are these wires connected to my limbs? These are the questions Neo must be struggling to answer. He does not have the skill to release himself; an insect-like android takes care of that responsibility, flushing him into darkness.

Departure, Stage 5: Belly of the Whale

After crossing the first threshold, Campbell says that the hero "is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died." Thomas Anderson and his life as corporate cog by day, hacker by night is over. A new life aboard the Nebuchadnezzar awaits. In a really nice touch, the ship hovers over his prostate body like a steel whale, the belly of which opens so that a mechanized apparatus can scoop the poor boy up and swallow him inside.

Next ... the six stages of Initiation!

*This class I'm teaching requires that students get two things: an introduction to literature and the skills to write a correct, longish research paper. Those loose parameters give faculty lots of flexibility. Some of my colleagues have all of their degrees in literature and treat the course as if the students were sophomore English majors. Not only do these instructors spend lots of class time explaining rhyme schemes, symbolism, the components of plot, etc., but they also require that students write a literary research paper [author biography, critical analyses of key works, etc.]. Others of us recognize that the course is required of all AA-degree-seeking students, most of whom have no interest in becoming English majors, and emphasize the production of the research paper [topic of each student's own choosing]. In the past, I have intentionally devoted so much time to the research paper that in the three or four weeks remaining at semester's end, I had time only to discuss a handful of short stories—and very superficially at that.

This semester, however, I realized that literature didn't have to be taught from an English department's perspective, that we could use a multi-discipline approach and make it meaningful to everyone in the room, no matter their individual majors. So I have used the hero cycle as our focus for the literature unit. Jung claims that "the human psyche possesses a common substratum transcending all differences in culture and consciousness"; this collective unconscious gives all of us a similar fantasy life and innate appreciation for certain archetypal stories like the hero cycle.

Understanding the cycle, seeing its influence on television programs like Lost, movies as diverse as Gladiator and Finding Nemo, and popular music, will give students an appreciation for all art forms that they encounter. In a conversation with future bosses at a company picnic, they can say something intelligent like "Character X would have had much more impact if Character Y hadn't tempted him off his path" instead of "Yeah, fast cars! Cool explosions! Great boobs on Actress Z!"

Alas, Another Year

My mother called this past weekend. "What are you doing next Saturday?" she asked.

"Nothing special."

"Would you like to go out for 'high tea'?" [In my head, I hear quotation marks around "high tea."]

"I think I'll pass." I have had many miserable experiences at "tea," a ritual all of my British-lit-loving colleagues practice with glee. We have one anglophile who likes to invite select female professors to her house at least once a year for such an event. These parties are excruciating for me to attend, especially since I always get stuck with silver tongs and the sugar bowl asking everyone, "One lump or two?" during several tours through the house. The last time I agreed to meet someone for "tea," the establishment dressed its employees in floor-length nineteenth-century garb which didn't complement my khakis, polo shirt, and bad attitude. I felt terribly uncomfortable through the whole meal [little food I was served].

"But you said that you didn't have anything planned! If I took you you somewhere else, you'd go then? We haven't celebrated your birthday yet, you know."

Ah, so the "tea" date was meant to be my belated birthday celebration. Of course Mom would want to take me somewhere I had no desire to go. I'm not sure what picture my mother has of me in her head, but it's not an accurate one.

"My Read Hat group went to the new tea shop on Edgewater while your step-father and I were on vacation. The girls raved about it!"

Of course they did, I thought. Pretentious old women would love just such a place. Gosh, Mom, when are you going to get that my interests differ from the ones you and your retiree friends share?

We finally compromised on the Cheesecake Factory, but in typical retiree fashion, Mom requested that we dine at off-peak hours. "You don't mind if we meet there as soon as it opens, do you? I think it's at eleven o'clock. I'll call to see if we need a reservation that early."

"No, eleven a.m. is fine." Anthing she wants if it will get me out of "tea."

I have a bad attitude about birthdays, and it has nothing to do with getting older. I remember when birthdays lost their magic—1976, the year I began junior high school and turned 13. At 4 a.m. of my birthday morning, my father arrived home from a night of disco debauchery to find his bags packed and waiting on the front steps. After a relatively mild fight with my mother [no refrigerators overturned, no pet gerbils smashed against the wall], he said, "So I guess this is it," gathered the suitcases, and left. We lived in a small house, and my sister and I had heard the entire exchange, but Mom just pretended that we were still asleep. She went about the day without ever mentioning that she and Dad had taken the first step toward divorce.

For this Twilight Zone birthday [Had they really split? Had I dreamed that morning? I knew better than to ask.], Mom had arranged a day at a stable where my friends and I could ride horses. She picked up the gang, drove us out to the country, and expected me to behave as if this was the best day of my life. I had never ridden anything except ponies at the fair. I expected to gallop on a horse as beautiful as the Black Stallion. I got instead some old hack, the largest animal there, who insisted on pulling the reins from my unskilled hands and dropping his head to graze. The trainer kept telling me to kick him with my heels, but even if doing so is a time-honored strategy for motivating equines, I didn't have the heart. So I sat in the saddle, sweating so badly in the hot sun that the seat of my jeans soaked through, wondering what my parents' impending divorce would mean. After our rented hour with the horses, my mother hustled all of us girls to Burger King for lunch. That day taught me to anticipate nothing but disappointment on birthdays.

I got a small bit of satisfaction when my father celebrated his birthday last year. When I called to wish him a happy 63rd, I asked how his day had gone so far. "This is the worst birthday ever," he replied.

"Why? What happened?"

"We're supposed to be on a cruise right now, but your grandmother pulled one of her usual stunts."

My father moved Grandma out to Texas two years ago. He set her up in a retirement community apartment where she quickly made friends with a bunch of Baptist Republicans. This gang of Q-Tips [what Elizabeth calls the white-haired elderly] walked to Walmart everyday, where they spent three hours cruising the store and purchasing single cans of off-brand green beans. After the new house was built, Dad removed Grandma from this paradise on Earth [Baptists + Republicans + Walmart = Heaven] to live with him and Step-Mom in the "mother wing." The house is in the country, and although Dad promised Grandma some chickens as pets [she's a farm girl from South Carolina], I'm not sure he has delivered. Alone with no peers and nothing to do, I'm sure Grandma is miserable.

"What did she do?"

"Well, you know, she had one of her 'allergy attacks' right before we left. She was having such a hard time breathing, we took her to the ER. Because of her age, the doctors offered to keep her overnight for observation, which she wanted. So we had to cancel, and since we didn't buy the insurance, we lost all of the money."

"Wow, Dad, that's terrible. I hope that she's okay now."

"Oh, yeah, she started feeling better as soon as it was too late for us to catch the plane to Fort Lauderdale."

Oh, well. It was time Dad learned that birthdays are big disappointments. I learned that lesson 29 years ago and so just tolerate the damn day the best I can.