disturbances) is less straightforward, and the actual depiction of characters and events
is more realistic, in the sense of less caricatural, implausible, or simplistic. However,
the basic ingredients remain the same: agents, environments and their interactions;
goals and values directing the initial course of action; the tradeoffs between
regulation, exploration and exploitation in deciding about and navigating along that
course; diversions, disturbances and affordances producing unforeseen upsets of those
courses, with the concomitant emotions and corrective actions.
Modern Myths
In spite of the greater sophistication of modern story telling, the structure and
components of the monomyth retain a strong appeal even for contemporary
audiences—probably because of the emotional impact caused by directly eliciting
deeply ingrained instincts and traditional cognitive schemata (“archetypes”). Vogler
[2007] wrote a frequently used handbook for novelists and screenwriters in which he
uses the hero’s journey as a basic scheme for developing compelling stories. For
concrete examples, one can refer to the enduring popularity of ‘superheroes’ in
movies and comic strips and of attempts to create contemporary myths, such as
Tolkien’s [1991] “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, or George Lucas’s “Star Wars”
series of movies. While Tolkien probably was inspired by much of the same material
as his contemporary Campbell [1949], Lucas explicitly used Campbell as a source of
inspiration [Vogler, 2007].
My personal preference goes to a lesser-known example, the Amber series of
fantasy/science fiction novels written by Roger Zelazny [1999]. The imaginary
universe created by Zelazny offers a perfect synthesis of archetypical mythical
components (heroes with suprahuman powers, magical realms, mythical beasts, epic
battles, ...) with modern realism and subtlety in the description of the characters’
psychology, the complexity of their interactions, reflections and scheming, and the
colorful and finely textured details of the settings. Moreover, the protagonists’ ability
to travel between (or is it create?) parallel universes offers a fascinating variation on
the theme of crossing the threshold into a mysterious world.
But what is perhaps most remarkable is that this teeming complexity is held in
check by an extremely simple, linear flow of time, centered on a single agent: the
events are narrated in the first person by the main protagonist, Corwin, in the strictly
chronological order as experienced by him while following an uninterrupted course of
action. Even the hero’s own background and character is revealed by means of such a
step-by-step journey of discovery, as the novel starts with Corwin waking up in a
hospital, having lost his memory, and trying to reconstruct his identity by searching
for clues.
Such a first-person perspective makes it particularly easy for readers to
imagine themselves perceiving the events from the hero’s point of view while
performing his actions. It is this internal mental simulation of the narrative’s flow of
action by the reader that makes a story so efficient as a vehicle to convey complex
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