Mythic Thinking

When defining myth, no one single definition adequately covers its complete nature. As anthropologists are among the primary modern collectors of myth, it is essential for the field to have an understanding on how to recognize a culture’s myth. For this reason, several theorists have attempted to define myth, but their definitions frequently overlook the other aspects of culture that are involved in the mythic process, such as the psychology of the individual. The other thing they overlook is where to find myths, keeping myth relatively confined to the sacred literature of the “primitive” or the “other”, a buzz word that refers to non-Western societies, i.e. those outside the USA, Canada, or Europe. This also includes industrialized, technological societies, such as Japan and Asia, India, and the former Soviet republics. I contend that modern Western myth is the only myth left to be studied by Anthropology; and to understand it, the researchers need to look within their own cultures and psyches, to borrow from Psychology, in addition to observing the world around them. To demonstrate this, I will explore four functions of myth as defined by Joseph Campbell, borrowing examples from modern myths found within the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman, The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, and the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.(1)

Myth in Anthropology

Historically, the field of Anthropology spent more time studying myth as a cultural phenomenon of “primitive” or “savage” peoples. For the first fifty years or so(2) of the field’s history, anthropologists collected myths from various groups, and other fields, such as Psychology, used these compilations to help develop corresponding theories. My research has uncovered a paradigm shift within Anthropology following World War II(3) that saw the field recognizing the need to define myth for the sake of consistency in research and writing, while failing to determine where and how to find myths, a growing problem given the dying nature of a pure “primitive” group.(4)

            Given the infinite nature of myth, a simple definition is impossible; however, one method to define myth is to describe its function. The functions have become pretty much consistent and will be explored further below.(5) The list of functions I use for this paper comes from Joseph Campbell’s book, Occidental Mythology, the third book in his Masks of God series. The four functions are 1) “that of eliciting and supporting a sense of awe before the mystery of being” (Campbell, Occidental 519); 2) “to render a cosmology, an image of the universe that will support and be supported by the sense of awe before the mystery of a presence and the presence of a mystery” (Ibid.); 3) “to support the current social order, to integrate the individual organically with his group…” (Campbell, Occidental 520); 4) “to initiate the individual into the order of realities of his own psyche, guiding him toward his own spiritual enlightenment and realization” (Campbell, Occidental 521). The purpose of Comparative Mythology is to explore these parallels, which is why I pull these functions from Campbell as opposed to Anthropology. Using these functions within Anthropology will help focus research attention in order to collect the necessary information to formulate a comprehensive picture of a culture and its myth. While several theorists do attempt to minimize myth into a simple recurring unity, each myth as it appears within a culture is unique in that it has been constructed after the culture. Many similarities can appear as a result of diffusion, and several parallels can be constructed between myths, but the cultural incarnation of a myth also needs to be studied within its own context. As a result, there are as many interpretations of myth as there are cultures.

(1) Much of this paper is written with the assumption that the reader is familiar with the terms. But just in case, an archetype represents an element of myth that connects us with what Jung called the collective unconscious, the unconscious that exists below the surface of humanity, thus unifying humanity. There are infinite examples of archetypes, and they lie just beyond our knowledge, making it difficult to truly know them. The best we can do is identify them, and attempt to identify with them. As we will see later, the archetype is similar to the mytheme, which represents the smallest unit of a myth.

(2) Depending on what material counts for the field’s beginning. Sir James Frazer wrote his key work, The Golden Bough, in the late 1800s, but the first Anthropology course was not taught at the university level until after the turn of the century, a difference of 30 years.

(3) All academic fields experienced similar shifts.

(4) I emphasize the word “pure” to mark the fact that any outside influence will somehow find its way into the lore of the group, thus making untainted lore difficult to find thanks to colonialism and missionaries.

(5) For examples of some attempts by anthropologists, see the appendix section at the end of this paper.

There’s something liberating about the periodic office cleaning. I recycled three bags worth of papers, have a box worth of files to shred, and put away most of my books. My filing cabinet is beginning to overflow. But at least I can see the floor again.

I have  a lot of essays sitting around. I have plans to formally publish some of them, but for those not so lucky, I thought I’d post them here. I’m going to limit my posts to 1000 words each, meaning many of these essays will be in multiple parts. The works cited will be given at the end of the essay once all parts are posted.

Here’s a little caveat: Some of these essays are OLD, and I really have no intention of rewriting them for posting. This means that some will be good and some will be pure, unadulterated crap. I welcome constructive comments. Any “this really stinks” comments will be deleted. Chances are I know it really sinks.

All essays posted under this project are considered intellectual property belonging to the author, and are subject to all appropriate copyright laws. If you wish to use any essay or any portion thereof, send me an e-mail requesting permission. To students: Please don’t plagarize. It makes writers sad pandas.

If you would like to submit an essay to the Mythic Thinking Essay Project, you may send them to priscilla@mythicthinking.org . Send your essay in the body of your e-mail. DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS. All essays are subject to approval, and you will be notified once a decision has been made. There is no compensation offered, except for the cool feeling of having something “published” on the web.

I decided to check out The Hog’s Head this morning and came across this post. Travis does an excellent job making an articulate criticism about why the Twilight series fails as literature. I wanted to respond to it, because I have been considering this very statement since I read the book.

**spoilers may follow**

Going into the series, I had the following assumptions: 1) if the same people I trust for Harry Potter news are into the story, then it must be alright; 2) if Buffy or True Blood can get away with it, then why not?; 3) a bazillion fans can’t be wrong. In this third assumption, I realize the error in my logic.

Not only have I read all four formally published books in the series, but I also dragged an unwitting friend to the midnight release for the last book, Breaking Dawn. I have not, for the record, seen the movie yet. Robert Pattinson, or whatever his name is, never did it for me. Neither him nor Kristin Stewart come close to my image of Edward or Bella.

I kind of enjoyed the first book. I saw the obvious parallels between Beauty and the Beast and Pride and Prejudice. Edward is clearly the Beast, eventhough he is supposed to be one of the most beautiful people in all of Forks. He is the secret killer, forced to engage in primal hunting in order to survive. Because of his secret, he intitally comes across as Darcy-ish: unwilling to associated to people who are not like him in order to protect him from exposing his secret. In other words, he builts up a protective wall to protect the vulnerable person lying within.

Bella, on the other hand, is fairly average and plain, but she is an independent young woman. I suspect her attraction to Edward has to do with his mystery and their common background of being an outsider: she for being from Phoenix and him for being a vampire.

The rest of the first book showcases their passionate love affair and ends with the foreshadowing of a nasty break-up. Edward insists that they shouldn’t be together.

The rest of the series goes thus: In book 2, Bella is broken hearted from being dumped, leans on her best friend, Jacob, for support and jumps on an opportunity to rescue King Emo. In book 3, Jacob and Edward fight for Bella’s affection, and Edward wins. In book 4, Bella gives up her college future to get married, knocked up, turned into a vampire, then adjust for her own life.

Literary criticism and poor editing aside, since when has it been encouraged to sacrifice one’s life for the sake of the rich guy? The over-arching story is really misogynistic and sends a questionable message to teenage girls. By the end of the fourth book, Bella is 19. The series is compared to Harry Potter, but at least Hermione encourages girls to follow their paths and develop into highly individualistic women. It’s as though the latent message is, “it’s okay that you can’t get into Harvard. Just find a rich boyfriend and become a housewife and parent instead!” This in opposition to the message that says, “It’s okay you can’t get into Harvard. That doesn’t mean you can’t be the best you possibly can!” Bella Swan gave up. Let’s also not forget the part that Edward is a stalker! He sneaks into Bella’s bedroom at night to watch her sleep! He will not allow her to make a single mistake, which is characteristic of domination and, in some cases, resembles relationship abuse.  And she’s okay with that?!?

Why are the books so popular? This has to do with the idea of the rich guy loving the average girl (a la Pride and Prejudice). But there is also the idea that it is okay to not make something of oneself. Bella has no ambition, nor is she really a risk-taker. Even the one time she attempted cliff jumping, everyone around her yelled at her for being so careless. She is driving entirely by love and will not listen to reason, even if it is in her best interest. Furthermore, at least in my opinion, I think it is a sign of weakness that she went back to Edward after he left her. Teen romances are not the end of the world.

Pride and Prejudice is on many high school reading lists, and so is Romeo and Juliet. In the former, the characters fight but wind up together regardless of class boundary. In the latter, the characters are so strongly in love that they kill themselves because they can’t be together. Both are beautiful stories, but they leave an impression on teenage minds that relationships should work that way. The theme of Pride and Prejudice is that one should marry for love, but it is not the most important point taken into consideration when the book is taught because, well, what is love anyway? It takes Harry Potter most of the series before he understands love, despite how many lessions he is given throughout the adventure. Lust is not love. Passion is not love. And Twilight confuses all of the above.

I just upgraded to Office 2007 Student Edition, which comes bundled with Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and One Note. I haven’t played with Powerpoint or Excel yet, but I am a fan of the new version based on my experience with Word and One Note. Yes, they’re different if one is used to older versions, and updating all files to the new version may lose some formatting.

Perks of Word include automatic citation formatting. The con is that the style needs to be updated in order to format properly, but all in all I think that is a simple work around. The screen arrangement is different, but not completely unnavigatable.

One Note is my total dream. I love being able to maintain different notebooks for different topics and having the freedom to move things around on screen.

I think all the criticism of Vista and Office 2007 is overrated. Perhaps there are fundamental problems with the programming, but similar problems exist in just about all instances. Part of it is computer snobbery. I came into Vista as a diehard Mac user. I had to make the switch because Macs are super expensive. I like being cross-compatable with operating systems. Someday, I will upgrade my Mac, but it’s not the highest priority.

Attendance at the March RoundTable was very slim, which I blame on the fact I lost everyone’s e-mail address. So, for those interested in the April RoundTable, I’m expanding the topic to include Chapter 2 in addition to the posted Chapter 3.