Atonement with the Father

I invoked the spirits of two dead colleagues yesterday while consulting with a student in freshman composition. The first sitting for the big do-or-die, department-graded final exam starts tomorrow, and I have been meeting with everyone to discuss the last in-class practice essay. I had given the topic "something that everyone should get for free" and read a number of papers on health care and textbooks. Julia, however, had written her essay on underwear, explaining why bras and panties shouldn't cost a penny.

The essay was fresh and interesting, but Julia made a common mistake: she used second-person pronouns, you and the like, throughout the paper, addressing me, the reader. I explained to her that Professors Fielding and Hammond, both male, might be the two evaluators of her final exam and would not want to be addressed as if they were women with bra and panty concerns. I advised her to replace the yous with first-person Is.

I know why I invoked Dave and Glen in my explanation to Julia. They were already senior colleagues when I began working here at 21, and the inexperienced, younger I thought them ruthless, careless evaluators who failed my students after just glancing at their papers, inconsiderate of the whole semester I had spent training those writers. [Today, I would substitute objective and experienced for ruthless and careless; that's what 22 years of classroom experience have done for me!] Speaking their names conjured their presence in my office, even though both men died shortly after retirement, bodies destroyed by too much abuse.

When I was younger, Dave and Glen were the antithesis of what I wanted for my professional life. Both were burnouts, but in different ways. Dave took campus politicking seriously—but not anything that happened in the classroom. Despite his ennui, his classes filled faster than anyone's when registration began; students considered him fun and easy. He sexed up every paper topic, every piece of literature he taught, and passed anyone who made an effort. He didn't bother to learn his students' names, but the easy As made everyone feel good, made everyone love him. Glen, too, had long since lost his enthusiasm for the job, but he blamed his students. He believed that the students had changed, not he himself. In his mind, the inadequate, unprepared folks who sat in his classes deserved nothing but his contempt and anger; his students dropped like flies. These two men were best of friends; at department gradings they competed to see who could read the most essays.

Years ago, the young-snot me couldn't understand why Dave and Glen appreciated their positions, tenure, and influence so little. I desired what they had, and I vowed that I wouldn't turn into them. Not all old-fart faculty were burnouts like these two; I had role models who were courteous and professional, who still enjoyed students and the classroom—or at least did a damn good job pretending.

But after 22 years at the college, 18 of them as a full-time instructor, I have reached the stage that Joseph Campbell, in his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, calls "atonement with the father." During the life-altering adventure detailed in this book, Campbell claims the hero must experience "at one ment" with his biological father—or a father figure or a strong masculine force. During the "at one ment," the hero realizes that an undesirable quality of the father resides in himself as well. Sometimes, after this recognition, the hero can keep the quality at bay. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker realizes that the undesirable dark side of the Force can tempt him, too, but he does not cross over as Darth Vader, his father, did. Sometimes, the hero embraces the once-undesirable quality, as does Neo in The Matrix, who realizes that he has the same level of commitment that Morpheus, his father figure, has shown.

I am at the point where I now understand Dave and Glen, where I have reached "at one ment" with my "fathers." Too many semesters of the same—the same student errors and excuses, the same accomplish-nothing committee work, the same predictable comments made by the same colleagues at department meetings, the same drive on the same road to work—are the cause of my own ennui. I don't think that a Zen master could sit through 22 three-hour graduation ceremonies, sweating in the hot robe, squirming on the uncomfortable folding chair, and not be over that experience. I cannot begin acting like a young snot again; that would mean that I would have to give up the maturity that makes me good.

So I am at a three-pronged fork in the road. Do I follow in the footsteps of the faculty who were pleasant and professional until retirement—even though I believe that they were secretly going through the motions, nothing more? Do I go where Glen beckons, down a path of anger and bitterness? Do I choose Dave's route, where fun process matters more than competent product? Or do I just get off the damn road, preferring to tramp through a field without the conventional guidance of concrete beneath my feet? These are the questions I am considering after atoning with my fathers.

The Hero Cycle and Cast Away, 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 = Turbulence wakes Chuck Noland, who is sleeping on a FedEx plane
Stage 2, Refusal of the Call = Noland, denying that the plane is in trouble, goes to the bathroom to wash his face
Stage 3, Supernatural Aid and Amulet = Albert Miller, a pilot, shoves a life raft into Noland's arms
Stage 4, Crossing of the First Threshold = With the help of the life raft, Noland makes it to the surface of the water, his old life sinking with the plane
Stage 5, Belly of the Whale = Noland reaches the deserted island, where he initially has no skills
Stage 6, Road of Trials = Despite the primitive conditions, Noland acquires basic necessities of life: food, shelter, water, companionship
Stage 7, Meeting with the Goddess = The Woman of the Golden Wings makes her appearance as a Port-O-Let, giving Noland the idea to leave the island
Stage 8, Woman as Temptress = Wife-like Wilson brings up his concerns about the dangers of leaving, tempting Noland to stay
Stage 9, Atonement with the Father = Noland sends himself off as a package, not knowing when, where, or if he will ever arrive, submitting to the mysteries of Father Time
Stage 10, Apotheosis, and Stage 11, The Ultimate Boon = Noland, powerful with his aluminum wings, flies over the breakers fencing the island and easily escapes

One advantage of using Cast Away to teach the hero cycle is that the third portion of the adventure gets a detailed treatment. My students and I decided that Chuck Noland met all the required stages of return.

Refusal of the Return: For this stage, my students and I disagreed. I will admit that they made a very strong argument for their case. I have always thought that Noland's refusal was the ease with which he adapts to life on the raft, illustrating his need for "no land" beneath his feet. We see him collect water during a storm and spear fish as he swims nearby. He is able to meet all of his basic needs, just as he did on the island, and I believe that his contentment and ease, his lack of impatience for an immediate rescue, fulfill this stage.

My students, on the other hand, thought that Noland refuses the return when Wilson falls off the raft and floats away. At this later point in life on the ocean, Noland is exhausted; he has lost his sail and the raft is disintegrating. When he discovers that Wilson is bobbing in the water far from the raft, he starts swimming to retrieve him but realizes that he doesn't have the strength. My students argued that if he had continued, he would have drowned, refusing the return in a definitive way. By choosing the relative safety of the raft over Wilson, he allowed the cycle to continue.

Since the stages of return must follow a certain order, the decision to lose Wilson to stay with the raft comes too late for me—other later stages have been met before this scene. But my students, clever people that they are, were still able to work out the rest of the cycle, as you will see.

Magical Flight: Powerful forces, according to Joseph Campbell, either help or hinder the hero's return home. Since I have equated the Woman of the Golden Wings with Athena to Noland's Odysseus, I believe that Noland is hindered when his Athena, represented by the Port-O-Let sail, flaps off into the night during a storm. She helps him off the island but thwarts him on the road back to his old life. Since this scene occurs before the loss of Wilson, the volleyball floating off on strong currents couldn't be, for me, the refusal of return.

My students argued that Noland's magical flight was instead the whale. Whereas I saw the whale only once in the movie, that one star-lit night early in the voyage home, my students believed that the whale had been following the raft ever since. They claimed that water spray was the proof. When Noland first encountered the behemoth, they explained, he was woken by spray. Since he was alerted by similar spray when Wilson fell off the raft, and then again as the ship that rescued him passed behind his back, my students argued that the whale had been watching over him in a protective manner ever since that first night.

Rescue from Without: No one disagreed that Kelly is Noland's call from his old life, the next stage in the cycle. We did have a laugh because a number of students couldn't understand why, when Noland finally sees the freighter, he is hoarsely calling out "Kill me. Kill me." Why, they asked, would he want to die this close to home? Those of us who had ears unruined by constant iPod music clarified that he was saying, "Kelly. Kelly."

Crossing of the Return Threshold: Again, this stage caused some minor disagreement. The appearance of the freighter, Noland's first sight of civilization in four years, full of packages as was his old life, is the crossing for me. My students wanted to wait until he was back on the plane with his buddy Stan, flying to the FedEx festivities. Either way, he transitions back to his modern life.

Master of Two Worlds: As a result of the adventure, the hero acquires skills that allow him to live more fully in his old life and have confidence to venture into the Unknown in the future. The best depiction of Noland's mastery occurs in his hotel room after his friends leave. He picks up a crab leg; he plays with a lighter; he sleeps on the floor. We know that he will be able to eat in a civilized manner at Red Lobster, that he will use the thermostat in his home and the buttons on his stove to control heat, that eventually he will sleep in a bed. Unlike a character in a Jack London story, he hasn't gone crazy during his years of deprivation. But we also know that if he has to spear fish with a sharpened stick, make fire with his bare hands, or get comfortable in a stone cave, that he retains those skills as well. And more importantly, we know that the confidence he has in his abilities to survive dramatically different environments will give him an edge whenever problems arise in his modern life.

Freedom to Live: By modern standards, the pre-crash Chuck Noland was a successful man. He commanded workers below him, jetting around the world insuring the interests of a huge corporation. But he was a slave to time and predictability. At the end of the movie, when he stands in the crossroads without a plan, willing to go not where a schedule dictates but where the moment carries him, then we know that he has true freedom to live.

My students were not unhappy that he loses Kelly. One young man, when Kelly's husband explains that she is unwilling to meet Noland, said, "I'd have beaten the shit out of him." But by the end of the movie, they agreed that his old life was a trap. They thought the artist was beautiful and cheered his decision to pursue her. I believe that they got the hero cycle.

The Hero Cycle and Cast Away, 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 = Turbulence wakes Chuck Noland, who is sleeping on a FedEx plane
Stage 2, Refusal of the Call = Noland, denying that the plane is in trouble, goes to the bathroom to wash his face
Stage 3, Supernatural Aid and Amulet = Albert Miller, a pilot, shoves a life raft into Noland's arms
Stage 4, Crossing of the First Threshold = With the help of the life raft, Noland makes it to the surface of the water, his old life sinking with the plane
Stage 5, Belly of the Whale = Noland reaches the deserted island, where he initially has no skills

The real meat of the adventure happens in the second major portion, initiation. At this point, the hero faces many challenges which, if he successfully meets them, provide opportunity for growth in knowledge and competence. My students and I concluded that Noland does finish all of initiation.

Road of Trials: Once the hero is swallowed into the unknown, lost to his old life, he discovers that he must acquire new skills to survive. Food pulled easily from a refrigerator or pantry and nuked in the microwave is no longer possible for Noland; neither is closing the snug door of his home to keep out the elements, or calling a friend by phone for companionship and conversation. So the next thing we observed was his slow development of basic survival skills: opening coconuts, finding shelter and water, building fire to cook crab, acquiring a companion in Wilson, the volleyball, and doctoring himself when he removes his own abscessed tooth. The degree of competence he develops living in primitive conditions is beautifully illustrated when the movie flashes forward four years, and the viewer finds a tan, lithe Noland easily spearing his dinner with the same ease he would have unwrapped a Filet-O-Fish in his old life.

Meeting with the Goddess: Noland has his own Athena, the Woman of the Golden Wings, who is a constant presence during his island adventure, just as Athena aided Odysseus in his long journey home from the Trojan War. Noland first encounters his goddess drawn on the one FedEx package that, after it washes ashore, he does not open. The mysterious contents—a waterproof satellite phone, perhaps?—give the package a palpable power. The goddess makes a big appearance in his life when she manifests as the Port-O-Let banging against the rocks on the beach. Noland retrieves the mangled aluminum and stands it in the sand where it resembles an abstract angel. He and Wilson then sit in a circle with her until Noland finally understands her message, that he needs wings himself to get past the breakers that fence the island. Her gift of wings in the guise of the Port-O-Let is the one thing Noland must have to continue his journey.

Woman as Temptress: In this stage of the cycle, physical pleasures, usually offered by a woman, tempt the hero to leave the uncomfortable adventure. When Noland realizes that his gift of "wings" can get him past the breakers, Wilson brings up the dangers and uncertainties of leaving. The island certainly isn't modern life, but it does offer the comfort of a full belly, the protection of a stone cave. Wilson, the nagging wife-like fragment split from Noland's personality, unsuccessfully tempts our hero with the island herself, Gaia, Mother Earth.

Atonement with the Father: I think that Noland experiences Campbell's "at one ment" with Father Time. In this stage, the hero must come to realize that he shares a belief or ability with a strong male—his biological father, a father figure, a masculine force. Until atonement, the hero previously thought himself incapable of having this belief or ability. This semester, we discussed both Luke Skywalker, who at first thinks he is incapable of going over to the dark side of the Force as Darth Vader did but then realizes that he too can entertain the temptation; and Neo, who at first believes he is incapable of the same level of commitment that Morpheus models but then demonstrates it himself as he rescues Morpheus from the Agents. Sometimes the "father" is evil, like Darth Vader, or good, like Morpheus. Either way, the father represents a force initially in opposition to the hero but one which the hero eventually embraces.

At the beginning of the movie, Noland believes that time is consistent and controllable. A package sent from the United States to Russia should arrive in x hours, every time, even if one has to steal a bicycle from a crippled child to finish the delivery. Noland realizes, however, as he is about to launch his raft, that time is inconsistent and mysterious, a fact he must accept as he sends himself as a package back home, not knowing when, or where, or even if, he will arrive.

Apotheosis and the Ultimate Boon: The last two stages of initiation quickly follow one another. The hero recognizes his superior ability and completes a difficult task with ease. Noland had demonstrated that he was a frail, puny human after he first arrived on the island. One night he spied a light on the horizon and got back in his life raft to paddle out to it. The island, at this point, would not let him leave. The waves easily repelled his efforts, gashing his leg on the sharp coral, as the water threw him back to the beach.

With his gift of Port-O-Let wings and a new raft he has built himself, Noland challenges the breakers again. Whereas the waves easily beat him back as an island neophyte four years ago, now Noland has the skill to fly right over them. Even to himself, he must feel he has god-like abilities in comparison to the man who washed ashore after the plane crash. Leaving the island so easily is his ultimate boon.

Tomorrow ... Noland is now ready to return, the third major portion of the cycle!

The Hero Cycle and Cast Away, Part 1

The research class I teach requires that students also receive an introduction to literature. They buy a reader that includes poems, short stories, and plays. Individual faculty then determine how much time they will devote to the literature portion of the class. My colleagues who have degrees in literature [and who resent the heavy load of composition classes required by a community college] will often spend the entire semester in the reader, making students explore a specific author and his/her works to satisfy the research portion of the class. Those of us who see the course as a composition class spend the biggest chunk of time on a non-literary research essay and just dip our toes into reader.

As usual, I used the Joseph Campbell hero cycle to frame our study of a handful of poems, short stories, and songs, hoping that my students would find the literature more engaging if we weren't analyzing poetic meter or picking out critic-contrived symbols. Poems, short stories, and songs contain parts of the hero cycle but never the whole adventure, so I always end the unit with a movie so that they can see the seventeen-stage cycle play out.

For years I used The Matrix, but then I wrote about that experience in this blog and didn't want one of my students to type "hero cycle matrix" into Google to discover all of my thinking ready to plagiarize. So the following semester we watched Finding Nemo, another successful movie to discuss, but I wrote about that one here too, ruining it for future classes.

This semester I chose Cast Away, and our discussion was so lively that I think this film choice was my best yet [which, of course, I'm ruining again by writing about it]. In Cast Away, the three main portions of the hero cycle—departure, initiation, return—have crystal clear lines of demarcation: Charles Noland, Tom Hanks' character, begins the movie as a typical, technology-dependent, modern man. He survives a plane crash and washes ashore on a deserted island where he must live a primitive existence to survive. After he successfully navigates a series of life-changing challenges, he eventually returns to his old life.

This movie was a three-day affair. On the first day, we watched through the scene when Noland discovers that the troubling thumps he hears in the undergrowth are just coconuts falling from the palm trees. Learning to open those coconuts begins his "road of trials," the first stage of initiation, the second major portion of the hero cycle.

My students and I divided up departure, the first major portion, like this:

Call to Adventure: Some students wanted the beeper that interrupts Christmas dinner to be Noland's call to adventure, but most of us thought that he accepted that invitation too easily. A real hero must at first refuse the call. The students who liked the beeper argued that he makes the plane wait once he gets to the FedEx hub, signifying a type of refusal, or at least a delay.

Maybe. But most of us thought that the call happens after the plane is in flight. We decided the plane itself communicates the call to adventure with its bad behavior, waking him from sleep with turbulence.

Refusal of the Call: Once Noland awakens, he tries to joke about the turbulence with the pilots. The pilots brush him off; everything in their actions and words indicate that the jet is in serious trouble.

Noland is not ready to give up his predictable, modern life, so he refuses the call to adventure by denying that he heard one in the first place. He grabs his shaving kit from his luggage and, despite a warning to sit down and buckle up, goes to the bathroom to wash his face. He's hoping, I'm sure, that when he exits the tiny, safe bathroom space, all will be well. Escaping to the bathroom to groom is his refusal of the call.

Supernatural Aid: Instead of finding that the flight has returned to normal, Noland is nearly ripped out of the bathroom from cabin depressurization. According to Joseph Campbell, a wise figure bearing amulets for the difficult journey ahead must next appear. For Noland, that supernatural aid is Albert Miller, one of the pilots. It is Miller who gives up his own oxygen mask so that Noland can breathe; it is Miller again who shoves the life raft into Noland's arms. The life raft is the amulet that Noland must have to continue his journey.

We watched as the plane hit the Pacific Ocean. Unless a person has survived such a crash, I doubt it's possible to appreciate what happens next. Robert Zemeckis, the movie director, has conveniently lit the crash scene so that the viewer can see water rushing into the fuselage and the plane sinking, but in real life I'd bet that the dark and shock would be so disorienting that determining the right direction to escape would be impossible. Noland, however, has the raft, and the air that fills it knows how to find the surface. Without that gift from Miller, Noland would have failed to finish the stages of departure, drowning with the crew.

Crossing of the First Threshold: I believe that when Noland throws himself into the raft and finds himself floating on the dark, rough sea, soaking wet and devoid of a schedule, he crosses the first threshold. He has left the dry, usually dependable, everyday airplane, finding himself instead in a wet raft ready to shirk its responsibility and flip him back into the water. There is no turning back; the adventure has begun.

One of my very bright students had a more symbolic crossing. She believed that when Noland is taking stock after washing ashore on the island and discovers that both his watch from Kelly, his fiancée, and his beeper are now inoperable, he crosses the threshold at that moment, leaving his time-organized life for a "time-less" existence on the island.

Belly of the Whale: We all agreed that the island is the belly of the whale, the place where the hero is lost, to be reborn—if he survives the next major portion of the cycle—a new, better man.


Tomorrow ... Part 2!

Finding Nemo and the Hero Cycle

Once again, my students and I satisfied the literature portion of the research course using Joseph Campbell's story rubric as our focus. To evaluate everyone's understanding of the hero cycle, this semester I showed Finding Nemo instead of The Matrix, the tried-and-true film I have used previously. Finding Nemo has several advantages: it is approximately 100 minutes, so even though we broke for discussion at four places in the movie, we still saw the whole thing during two 75-minute class meetings. Second, I didn't have to ride the volume command as there are fewer scenes that will inspire an instructor next door to ask me to reduce the noise—no gun battles, no explosions, no screaming subway trains. Plus, all of those overprotected, closed-minded religious kids can't complain as it is a G-rated movie. The nice thing about a Pixar choice is that there are enough references to adult concerns that the students don't think the movie is totally unhip; Bruce and his shark boys, for example, are in a 12-step program for "substance" abuse.

We managed to get Marlin through 16 of the 17 stages. The only one we missed was "refusal of the return." Since the movie so abbreviated the return portion of the cycle, we concluded that Marlin probably satisfied this stage as well, but the scene didn't make the final edit. When I have time to watch the movie again carefully, I'll follow Nemo more closely and see if he too goes through all seventeen stages.

We broke Departure down like this:

Call to adventure: Nemo disobeys his father and swims past the drop off to inspect the boat. This scene should inspire Marlin to leave the reef and venture into the open water.

Refusal of the call: Marlin attempts to order Nemo back but refuses to follow his son past the drop off.

Supernatural aid: The scuba diver nets Nemo, the goggles with the Sydney address the "amulet" Marlin needs to start his adventure. [Many students wanted to use Dory as supernatural aid, as she guides and advises—such advice as it is—our hero throughout the adventure.]

Crossing of the first threshold: Marlin makes his ineffective dash after the boat carrying his captured son.

Belly of the whale: Marlin finds himself out in the ocean proper, far from the comforts and familiarity of the reef.

After our discussion of Departure, I turned the movie back on and let them watch through the encounter with the sea turtles. After this portion of the film, we decided that Marlin had three major challenges during his "road of trials," the first stage of Initiation. He learns how to deal with the new denizens of the open ocean when he and Dory encounter Bruce, the great white, and the other shark boys. The anglerfish and then the school of jellyfish teach Marlin about the dangers past the drop off. I challenged the students to find another series of three, but most of them could only pick out one or two more. Since I used the scuba diver as supernatural aid, I believe Marlin's first "trial" is learning to make sense of the illogical Dory. Another one that the students tended to overlook was escaping the tottering ship that almost crushes Marlin and Dory right after they escape the sharks—perhaps because they lumped this scene into the trial of the sharks. The smart-ass school of fish, another communication challenge, made a total of six for me.

"Well, what if you ask us about road of trials on the exam?" asked one student who couldn't come up with six.

"Then you say something like, 'Road of trials is a stage that typically comes in series of three. Marlin faces many trials during his adventure, but the three most important ones are A, B, and C.'" Most of them just don't know how to manipulate the evidence to make it look as if they know more than they actually do, and sometimes I feel like a used car salesman explaining how to spin the material to their advantage.

We decided that Crush qualified as "meeting with the goddess," the next stage of Initiation, even though he was male. His emphasis on parenting made him, in our minds, feminine, and his advice about giving children independence seemed the key lesson Marlin needed to learn to complete the adventure successfully. I had primed them earlier in the unit for considering a male character as feminine. During the hero cycle lecture, we viewed a clip from Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader and the Emperor try to tempt Luke to the dark side of the Force. I explained that "dark" was symbolically feminine [for example, the black half of the yin-yang [ sign], so Vader and the Emperor, both men, could qualify as "woman as temptress" since they represented the dark [i. e. feminine] side of the Force.

Next, I let them watch through the fishing boat capture. We equated the whale, gender undetermined, that swallows Dory and Marlin as "woman as temptress" because in Marlin's mind at least this experience takes him off the path of his adventure. The whale poses the danger of getting eaten on the one hand, but it is also a womb-like bubble of protection from the other uncertainties of the ocean. One very literal, not-so-bright student interjected that the whale scene was "belly of the whale," even though we had concluded that a different, much earlier part of the movie had already met that stage, even though I had carefully explained the stage as being swallowed into the great unknown. Alas, there's one in every class ...

For Marlin, "atonement with the father" is the most important stage. We concluded that Marlin's "father" was all of the permissive dads who allowed—in Marlin's mind at least—their children to have too much independence. At the start of the movie, Bob [the seahorse], Ted [the octopus], and Bill [the fish] come to mind; they easily relinquish their children to Mr. Ray, the schoolmaster. Marlin initially believes that these fathers are wrong to give their children so much freedom, but as a result of his adventures, he realizes that Crush and Dory are both right about trusting and letting go.

Marlin gets to demonstrate his "atonement with the father" during the next two stages, "apotheosis" and "the ultimate boon." When Dory is scooped up by the fishing boat, Nemo rushes to help her. Marlin, however, doesn't want to lose his son again and tries to interfere. Nemo insists that he can save Dory and explains that Marlin can help as well by getting all of the netted fish to swim down. Marlin relinquishes Nemo's fin, allowing his son to have independence, and then works to inspire the trapped and bewildered catch to swim together toward the ocean floor. Marlin demonstrates god-like ability as the catch overpower the humans who trapped them. Their eventual escape of the net qualifies as "the ultimate boon," the difficult task easily accomplished. I told my students to compare this Marlin to the pathetic version at the beginning of the movie. Pre-adventure, Marlin couldn't save Nemo from a tiny net; now, however, he nearly capsizes an entire fishing boat to free his son.

My students and I never observed Marlin refuse the trip home, but we could get him through the rest of the Return portion of the cycle. We decided that a couple of things could satisfy "magical flight." First, since ocean gossip about Marlin's search for Nemo helped our hero get to his son, then all the creatures who knew the story would help [or at least not hinder] his return to the reef. Since some students believed Dory was supernatural aid, equating her as a loopy Athena to Marlin's dysfunctional Odysseus, Dory could also be the divine aid maneuvering Marlin home. Even the pipe Marlin begins to follow, erected by otherworldly humans, could qualify.

"Rescue from without," that call from the old life to return, has existed the entire movie for Marlin. The reef, its comfort and familiarity, beckons him back. We knew Marlin crossed "the return threshold" because we saw him happily home at the end of the film.

We realized that the journey had certainly changed Marlin. Not only does he allow Nemo the independence to attend school, but that tight hold he had both on his son and himself [hence his inability to tell a successful joke] has loosened. Now he can deliver a flawless punchline and graciously welcomes Bruce, the fish-eating great white, who arrives to deliver Dory. The other reef dwellers, none of whom have taken as great an adventure, panic in the shark's presence, but Marlin, who is now "master of two worlds"—the reef and the open ocean—has no fear. He has "freedom to live," his worst personality flaw corrected during the arduous journey. Marlin has the knowledge and skill to swim past the drop off if a need ever arises. Should a paralyzed parent be unable to dash after a lost child, we know if Marlin is there, he will swoop up the fishlet and return the kid to the reef in Superman fashion.

I read the Joseph Campbell biography at Wikipedia and learned that several folks criticize his hero cycle. For example, Kurt Vonnegut says that it is better named the "in the hole" theory and can be summarized like this: "The hero gets into trouble. The hero gets out of trouble." A careful reading of The Hero with a Thousand Faces reveals that the cycle is more than "into trouble ... out of trouble." Several key stages in Initiation—"meeting with the goddess," "woman as temptress," and "atonement with the father"—and then demonstrating "master of two worlds" in Return are key to refining the hero's personality, fixing flaws that existed before the adventure began. We tend to believe that we "know it all," but hearing and accepting the advice of the goddess shows us that we don't have the full picture, opening us up to the wisdom of others. Navigating successfully past the temptress, who represents the pleasures and diversions of the flesh, allows us to experience the full strength of our own discipline and will. In "atonement with the father," when we see that we too are capable of what we despised or disagreed with, we realize that any two opposing sides have validity. We see that another's opinion is not a cause to argue, just a different "side" of the one universe, someone's wet to our dry, someone's cold to our hot, someone's salty to our sweet.

The cycle isn't a spring break road trip where the hero parties too much and then returns home unchanged. The cycle is instead an opportunity to evolve, the chance to develop an inner strength that makes the hero more adaptable to an ever-changing world. Neo in The Matrix is better able to maximize his potential as the result of his adventure, just as Marlin demonstrates at the end of Finding Nemo.

Dear Melissa Etheridge

I am a big enough fan that I purchased your iTunes Originals, even though I already owned all of the songs on CDs. I really enjoyed the spoken explanations and histories for each track interwoven with the music. One of your comments about "You Can Sleep While I Drive" really struck me: You said, "I never expected anything from that song ... but audiences would love it when I sang it. It was never released as a single ... it was never a hit on the radio or anything ... but it was a hit with my fans."

I think I can explain why people like that particular song so much and why other artists have covered it: The song illustrates the opening sequence of stages a potential hero must complete in the Joseph Campbell hero cycle. Campbell believed that everyone is prewired to recognize these stages—in stories, movies, or even songs—because the cycle resides in our collective unconscious.

Campbell believed that every human being, whether a Regular Joe like me or a mythological person like Achilles from the Trojan War or Ripley from Aliens, is meant to begin a journey of growth during which an old self will "die," allowing the "birth" of a more evolved being. This journey has three distinct portions, departure, initiation, and return. During departure, the potential hero must complete five stages. First, she receives a call to adventure. Next, she initially refuses the call, wanting to avoid change and secure her old, familiar life. Supernatural aid, the third stage, is the entrance of a wise figure, often bearing amulets of power, who guides the potential hero at the beginning of the adventure. The hero wannabe then crosses the first threshold, the demarcation between her known life and the realm of the mysterious journey, and enters the belly of the whale, an existence where entirely new challenges await. "You Can Sleep While I Drive" illustrates all of these stages.

As the singer, you first make the call to adventure, beckoning the one sung to, the potential hero, to begin the journey: "Come on, baby, let's get out of this town ..." Obviously, the one sung to is resisting this call. Despite your offer to let her sleep while you drive, you see that the potential hero has a "mist that covers [her] eyes," a reluctance to accompany you. So you next step in as her supernatural aid, offering as amulets of power the fully gassed convertible, money for expenses, a plan for the trip, all with your guidance as the driver behind the wheel.

People want supernatural aid, even though the appearance of such a person in their lives indicates new challenges and change. That's why the hard to please Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid, Obi Wan Kenobi of Star Wars, or John Locke of Lost are such compelling characters. They demand that their heroes-in-training work hard and become more fully human than they currently are. The real woman who inspired this song might have resisted your call, but fans listening to the offer would hop right in. Gay fans who have seen your real-life leadership in coming out, raising a family, and fighting breast cancer would be especially quick to recognize your voice as supernatural aid, authentic with real experience, and respond to the call that is the song.

Leaving "this town" is crossing of the first threshold, Tuscan the beginning of a journey where the routine of daily life gives way to the unexpected adventures along the road.

I played "You Can Sleep While I Drive" to my students after we discussed the departure portion of the hero cycle. Since the song did not get airplay as a single, many of them had never heard it before but immediately responded, as they should have, prewired as they are for recognizing the stages of departure. I followed with "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses, the best belly of the whale song, to show that once the adventure begins, the hero is so not in Kansas anymore.

Anyway, it makes perfect sense to me that this song is a favorite, not only of yours but also of your fans. God knows, you have been supernatural aid in my life for many years, and I wouldn't hesitate to jump right into that vehicle—if only to drive to the corner Starbucks for an iced latte.

Best,
Sparky

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.

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!"