This month I am introducing guest blogger Mark Lumpkin, Ph.D. He wrote an essay on the 1999 film 8MM (Eight Millimeter) viewing the film through an archetypal lens. He highlights the archetype of Hermes, Persephone, and the journey to the Underworld. He takes us step by step through the film and unpacks its mythological underpinnings. I reproduce his introduction […]
In my previous post I gave a bare bones overview of the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is comprised of two primary archetypes: the character archetype of the Hero and the process archetype of the Journey. According to Christopher Vogler (see The Writers Journey), the Hero’s Journey is peopled with a small set of character archetypes. One […]
Here is a primitive diagram of the Hero’s Journey. Basically, it follows Aristotle’s story design of Beginning, Middle, and End. For writers, this structure also mirrors the 3-Act play, where both the “Descent” and the “Initiation” make up the middle act. The Ordinary World isn’t necessarily “ordinary”. What is meant by the term “ordinary” is […]