The Heroine’s Journey Map

Title

The Heroine’s Journey Map

Description

The hero’s journey is a search for one’s soul and is chronicled in mythologies and fairy tales throughout the world. This quest motif does not, however, address the archetypal journey of the heroine. For contemporary women, this involves the healing of the wounding of the feminine that exists deep within her and the culture.

In 1990, Maureen Murdock wrote The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness as a response to Joseph Campbell’s model. Murdock, a student of Campbell’s work, felt his model failed to address the specific psycho-spiritual journey of contemporary women. She developed a model describing the cyclical nature of the female experience. Campbell’s response to her model was, “Women don’t need to make the journey. In the whole mythological tradition the woman is there. All she has to do is to realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to” (Campbell, 1981). That may be true mythologically as the hero or heroine seeks illumination but psychologically, the journey of the contemporary heroine involves different stages.

The Heroine’s Journey begins with an Initial Separation from feminine values, seeking recognition and success in a patriarchal culture, experiencing spiritual death, and turning inward to reclaim the power and spirit of the sacred feminine. The final stages involve an acknowledgement of the union and power of one’s dual nature for the benefit of all humankind (Murdock, 1990, pp. 4-11). Drawing upon cultural myths, Murdock illustrates an alternative journey model to that of patriarchal hegemony. It has become a template for novelists and screenwriters, shining a light on twentieth-century feminist literature.

Designer

Murdock, M.

Date

1990

Bibliographic Citation

Bradley Harper MD, C. (Ret) U. A. (2019, September 6). The heroine’s journey. Medium. https://bradleyharper.medium.com/the-heroines-journey-1551d80aa55d

Murdock, M. (1990). The heroine’s journey: Woman’s quest for wholeness. Boston: Shambhala Pub.

Murdock, M. (2016). Articles: The heroine’s journey. Maureen Murdock. https://maureenmurdock.com/articles/articles-the-heroines-journey/

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