Charting her own path, the contemporary heroine does not and cannot rely on society to help her on her journey, as in the case of Campbell’s hero’s journey, where t he path for the hero is laid out by the extant myths and symbols of a society. Rey’s journey in The Force Awakens creates a revised heroine archetype that mirrors the diversity and isolation faced by people in modern society. The hero’s quest is primarily an internal quest about self-discovery and secondarily, an external quest to save his world or his society. According to Campbell, “the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside” (Campbell, Hero 12). Critically, the hero’s journey is not merely an external physical quest, but depends on the hero’s willingness to look inward and undertake an internal quest into his own psyche. Differing characters or episodes can become fused, or a single element can replicate itself and reappear under many different guises.
He faces a supreme ordeal, gains his reward, and crosses the threshold back into the ordinary world, bringing some elixir with him, which can restore the world (Campbell, Hero 211). The hero arrives at the threshold of adventure, rejects the call to adventure, and finally crosses the threshold into an unfamiliar world where he is helped, or threatened, by forces or guides. In an interview with Bill Moyers in 1999, George Lucas says, “When I did Star Wars, I consciously set about to recreate myths and the classic mythological motifs and I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that existed today” (Moyers 00:02:22-42). The Star Wars sagas follow this monomyth with minor deviations from the overall formula. Since its publication in 1949, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been the de facto description of the hero’s journey.
Image screenshot from 00h 13m 33s.Īll screenshots from The Force Awakens unless otherwise noted. Rey (Daisy Ridley) in Unkar Plutt’s shop on Jakku before her awakening. Third, the traditional hero receives guidance on his journey, while the contemporary heroine pushes ahead alone, striving to save her society from despair. Second, the contemporary heroine’s self is awakened and called to adventure in a different way than the traditional hero. First, the contemporary heroine’s journey focuses primarily on the greater good and secondarily on her own personal journey, which is the converse of the traditional hero’s journey. It follows the contemporary heroine’s journey while conforming to the essential construct of the hero monomyth. Instead, the story line of The Force Awakens leads me to believe that it creates a new iteration of the hero myth. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is not the hero’s journey as George Lucas previously conceptualized it. The Force Awakens: The Individualistic and Contemporary Heroine
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