Midterm Paper.

Stephen Moriarty                                                                                                     Mid-Term Paper

Throughout this paper I am going to talk about the monomyth and different phases of my life that can relate to the different parts of the monomyth. The different stages of the monomyth that I am going to be covering are-  the call to adventure, the belly of the whale, refusal of the call, woman as the temptress, crossing the first threshold, and the road of trials. I am not going to cover each story in chronological order, but rather the way each phase of the monomyth happens. The stories that correlate with each phase of the monomyth range from coming to college for the first time, my religious beliefs, to just quitting my job mid shift. The message that is going to be portrayed in this paper is how we all have a monomythic journey, and this is my monomythic journey.

“The Call to Adventure is when the hero’s journey begins when the hero becomes aware of the world outside his home or town where he/she has lived for his entire life.” (The Heroic Monomyth) And my most important call to adventure so far in my life has been coming to college.  This is my call to adventure because it the first phase of my life as an adult on my own, going through all the schooling hoping to get a higher paying job then I would without school. My parents and grandparents always told me that I needed to go to college, but for a time in my life I wasn’t sure if that is what I wanted to do. I didn’t know if I want to go into the services or just take a lower paying job without schooling.  But after thinking about career choices I decide that college was the best option, then I needed to determine what school to attend. IUP was my choice because it was far enough away from home but not too far at the same time, and it also offers my major.  So in the end I decided to follow my parents and grandparents advice and answer “my call” and go off to college. And I am glad that I did end up answering the call, because I think it was the right choice as long as I stay focused and do my work, which is hard at times trying not to get caught up with partying and all that good stuff. If I didn’t answer the call I don’t believe I would have been as happy as I am now. Instead of this I would be in the army or I would be flipping burgers for seven dollars an hour which would be miserable.

“The Refusal of the Call is when the hero may actually refuse the initial call to adventure, usually from their fear of change. The hero will eventually go on his journey” (The Heroic Monomyth) A time in my life when I refused the call was back in the eighth grade when I went to a catholic school called St. Francis. There, whenever the students are in eighth grade they go through the sacrament of confirmation, but I wasn’t sure if this church is the church that I really wanted to be associated with for the rest of my life. So after pondering if I really wanted to go through with this and become a member of the Catholic Church, my personal decision was that I didn’t want to go through with this, and I would  decide later in life what religious group I would join if any at all. So after I made this decision the next step was to tell my parents my choice, which they didn’t agree but they did respect and understood why. The next person I had to tell and that I really wasn’t looking forward to telling was my principal Sister Phyllis. To say the least she was unhappy and shocked at the same time, and she informed me that in the 40 some years that she has been at the school I was the only person that made this decision. Refusing the call for me didn’t mean that I didn’t believe in God anymore, it just meant that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be catholic, Baptist or unassociated with any church and just be a Christian. And I still have not made my decision on what church I want to be affiliated with. So I still am in the process of answering my call to religion and am not sure when it will be answered.

“Crossing the First Threshold is when the hero must cross is what separates the hero from the comforts of his home to the adventurous new world filled with mystery and danger.” (The Heroic Monomyth) Going to high school as a freshman had to be that moment for me.  I say that because k-8 I went to Saint Francis which was a catholic school where in each grade there was only about 30 kids. So every year you had class with the same people, then after eighth grade I entered the high school that had over 1000 kids and different people in every class. For me it was out of the norm to go to school and not have the same 30 kids in my class that I was used to for the last nine years.  Plus the public high school had a totally different atmosphere than the catholic school. Kids didn’t have to wear uniforms; they got away with more stuff then they ever would have in a catholic school.  Even though before going to school I thought it was going to be a huge change, which it was in a way, I thought it was going to be worse than what it really was.

“The Belly of the Whale is when the hero crosses the threshold, he finds himself alone in the darkness of new world.” (The Heroic Monomyth)  For me there was one clear distinct belly of the whale moment in my life. That moment for me was whenever I was 12 years old and I had my surgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Before the surgery, whenever I was told that I was going to have this procedure, I was rather scared and no one in my family has ever had a surgery like this. But once it was determined I was going to have it, I went to Johns Hopkins to meet with my doctor, which he told me that I would need to have a number of test conducted. He also informed me of what I was in store for with the procedure and that it would not be a fun time. So now I needed to get a wide array of test done from MRI to running on a treadmill to different breathing test.  Now it’s time for me to go to Baltimore and stay in a hotel the night before, which was rather a nerve racking night, were I can’t eat or drink anything for a day. The next day I needed to get up and be at the hospital by 5 am, when I arrived I meet with a nurse were they hooked me up to an iv. So now I go into the operating room and get hooked up to the anesthesia and then wake up hours later. Whenever I woke up I was in a room with my parents and grandparents and was totally out of it, but later on in the day the nurses had me sit up. At that time the medicine made me sick and I was throwing up, which was the worst pain that I have ever felt.  The second day I needed to get out of bed and walk around the floor of the hospital which was really hard cause I was still heavily medicated. So that scenario played itself over every day that I was in the hospital. Whenever I made it home and was still recovering I went to my local doctor and he discovered that my incision has become infected.  This was really a true belly of the whale moment for me because whenever one thing would happen another thing would happen too, whether it was getting sick off the medicine or the infection it.

“Road of Trials is when in the new world, the hero must confront a series of challenges and tests to help the hero improve his character and skills to become more self-reliant.” (The Heroic Monomyth) For me this would be the struggle that I have been having lately with staying focused in school and trying not to get distracted along the way.  The problem for me is just getting motivated to do the work, but whenever I start my work I stay focused.  There are many different reasons for this, especially on the weekends.  I always know that I need to complete my work either reading or writing but the problem is for me just getting started on the work. It always seems like a better idea to go out and drink rather than sit around and do work at night. I know I haven’t put in my best effort so far this semester, which is rather disappointing but it’s one of those things that I really am working on. But I know that the end result of overcoming this struggle is worth it. If I can just stay focused and complete my work, it will hopefully increase my chances of a higher paying job. So I will hopefully soon overcome my road of trials and enjoy the end result of the struggle.

“Woman as the Temptress is when a hero’s journey can sometimes be represented as a temptress, rather than a goddess, and also acts as another step in the Road of Trials.” (The Heroic Monomyth) My woman as a temptress moment is whenever I walked out of my job at the avenue restaurant in Gettysburg.  At the Avenue I had been working there for over three years and was a nightshift cook.  It was a Friday night in early September and for some reason they only schedule me and one other guy to run the whole kitchen. So we were already pissed that it was only two of us to run the whole thing, then we asked to the owner Ryan to try to call someone else to come in and give us help. At that point he just left the kitchen and we thought he was going to call for someone else to come and help. At this point me and the other guy are way behind and the waitresses were getting pissed at us for being too slow, so at that point we ask Ryan again to call someone to give us some help. His response to that was “Well two is better than one” and laughed as he left the kitchen.  Well at that point I said fuck that and just walked out without saying anything to anyone except to the other person that I was working with in the kitchen. Looking back on this moment it was an irrational decision and I wish I would have taken a moment to think about just quitting. Because besides that one owner Ryan it was a pretty sweet job where I got at least 40 hours a week and was making nine dollars an hour at 17 years old.  Even though it wasn’t a women in that came into my path this incident made me look at myself. I realized that what I did was a rather selfish act, and even though I really screwed them over I believe by looking at myself I think it made me a better person because I matured some. Now after that incident I take time to look at a situation and see if the decision is worth it in the end. And since that, I have gone into the restaurant and apologized to Tammy the other owner for what I did to her and the restaurant.

So before this class I have never heard of the monomyth and I know idea what it was about. But now that I have learned about this I realize how every scenario in my life can be related to one part of the monomyth. Whether it is obvious or you have to look for the meaning everything can relate to this theme.

REFERENCES

The Heroic Monomyth.:
http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00212/monomyth.html.

Monomyth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’ Monomyth
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/hero_journey/hero_journey.htm