Scan barcode
A review by jackiehorne
The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture by Gail Carriger
3.0
I was really looking forward to reading Carriger's foray into nonfiction, especially as her book focuses on both literary analysis and writing craft. But the book itself turned out to be rather disappointing. It reads like the notes to several conference presentations/talks, rather than the more in-depth exploration I was expecting from a book-length work. The tone is breezy and jokey, the information often repetitive, and the framework applied to everything, whether it fits or no. Perhaps because I was expecting a more serious book, I was majorly underwhelmed.
Carriger's key insight, though, is vitally important. An alternative to the archetypal masculine hero's journey, as theorized by Joseph Campbell, certainly exists in popular culture, in the form of what she has chosen to call the "heroine's journey," a narrative framework that is not about solitary achievement through violent struggle but rather group achievement, through networking and connecting and sharing the workload. And said archetypal journey has been traditionally disparaged and denigrated by those inculcated into the universality of the hero's journey (can you say "patriarchy"?). So those who, like Carriger, write the "heroine's journey" should stand up and be proud feminists, not cower in embarrassment because our protagonists aren't "heroic" enough.
I think my annoyances with the content of the book stem from the fact that I taught college classes on the Fantasy genre, so I'm familiar with both the Campbellian hero's journey, as well as feminist responses to it. Feminist literary critics have been writing about the heroine's journey for a while now: see Annis Pratt's 1981 book, Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction [b:Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction|1255043|Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction|Annis Pratt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383166884l/1255043._SX50_.jpg|1243821], or Clarissa Pinkola Estés' 1992 Women Who Run with the Wolves [b:Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype|241823|Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype|Clarissa Pinkola Estés|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500974527l/241823._SY75_.jpg|981745] for two examples. So Carriger's argument won't be as novel to literary critics as it may be to those outside the academy.
I was annoyed by the fact that Carriger decided to call this framework the "heroine's" journey; it required her to have to keep reminding readers that despite its name, a "heroine's journey" could be made by a man, or a woman, or a nonbinary person. Over and over again. Obviously, she was responding to Campbell's far more famous "hero's journey," but if she was going to be subversive, she might have renamed them both to de-couple these patterns from gender. Or at least talked more about what is at stake when we label one pattern the "hero's journey," and the other the "heroine's journey."
I was also annoyed that Carriger doesn't work very closely with Campbell's monomyth, but more with a bastardized popularization of it (or, the way she sees it playing out in popular culture). Campbell's monomyth, unlike the more simplified hero's journey Carriger describes, does not end in isolation. Campbell's hero returns from his journey able to use the wisdom he learned on his quest, and often shares his wisdom or boon with his society. But in order for her message of hero's journey = male working alone, heroine's journey = woman working with others, Campbell's more nuanced framework has to fall by the wayside.
I also felt that many of the books she uses to explain the heroine's journey could just have easily be analyzed using the hero's journey, depending on which aspects of a book one emphasized, and which ones one ignored (Harry Potter, for example). The limits of such an overly broad framework, perhaps? Archetypal criticism fell out of favor in academic circles in the 1990s, if not earlier, as it was seen as too limiting, too totalizing, too willing to ignore the historically specific.
Finally, from a writer's standpoint, the book was rather lacking in a discussion of HOW to apply the beats of a heroine's story to one's own writing. Or how to combine the two. One chapter with 10 pretty basic techniques, techniques that seemed best suited to writing fantasy than to any other fiction subgenre, did not satisfy me as a writer of romance.
Still, despite all my annoyances with the book, I think it will be helpful and energizing for many writers who are unfamiliar with archetypal literary criticism beyond pop cultural understandings of the hero's quest, and who would rather write about building community than fighting the battles before community can be created.
Carriger's key insight, though, is vitally important. An alternative to the archetypal masculine hero's journey, as theorized by Joseph Campbell, certainly exists in popular culture, in the form of what she has chosen to call the "heroine's journey," a narrative framework that is not about solitary achievement through violent struggle but rather group achievement, through networking and connecting and sharing the workload. And said archetypal journey has been traditionally disparaged and denigrated by those inculcated into the universality of the hero's journey (can you say "patriarchy"?). So those who, like Carriger, write the "heroine's journey" should stand up and be proud feminists, not cower in embarrassment because our protagonists aren't "heroic" enough.
I think my annoyances with the content of the book stem from the fact that I taught college classes on the Fantasy genre, so I'm familiar with both the Campbellian hero's journey, as well as feminist responses to it. Feminist literary critics have been writing about the heroine's journey for a while now: see Annis Pratt's 1981 book, Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction [b:Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction|1255043|Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction|Annis Pratt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383166884l/1255043._SX50_.jpg|1243821], or Clarissa Pinkola Estés' 1992 Women Who Run with the Wolves [b:Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype|241823|Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype|Clarissa Pinkola Estés|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500974527l/241823._SY75_.jpg|981745] for two examples. So Carriger's argument won't be as novel to literary critics as it may be to those outside the academy.
I was annoyed by the fact that Carriger decided to call this framework the "heroine's" journey; it required her to have to keep reminding readers that despite its name, a "heroine's journey" could be made by a man, or a woman, or a nonbinary person. Over and over again. Obviously, she was responding to Campbell's far more famous "hero's journey," but if she was going to be subversive, she might have renamed them both to de-couple these patterns from gender. Or at least talked more about what is at stake when we label one pattern the "hero's journey," and the other the "heroine's journey."
I was also annoyed that Carriger doesn't work very closely with Campbell's monomyth, but more with a bastardized popularization of it (or, the way she sees it playing out in popular culture). Campbell's monomyth, unlike the more simplified hero's journey Carriger describes, does not end in isolation. Campbell's hero returns from his journey able to use the wisdom he learned on his quest, and often shares his wisdom or boon with his society. But in order for her message of hero's journey = male working alone, heroine's journey = woman working with others, Campbell's more nuanced framework has to fall by the wayside.
I also felt that many of the books she uses to explain the heroine's journey could just have easily be analyzed using the hero's journey, depending on which aspects of a book one emphasized, and which ones one ignored (Harry Potter, for example). The limits of such an overly broad framework, perhaps? Archetypal criticism fell out of favor in academic circles in the 1990s, if not earlier, as it was seen as too limiting, too totalizing, too willing to ignore the historically specific.
Finally, from a writer's standpoint, the book was rather lacking in a discussion of HOW to apply the beats of a heroine's story to one's own writing. Or how to combine the two. One chapter with 10 pretty basic techniques, techniques that seemed best suited to writing fantasy than to any other fiction subgenre, did not satisfy me as a writer of romance.
Still, despite all my annoyances with the book, I think it will be helpful and energizing for many writers who are unfamiliar with archetypal literary criticism beyond pop cultural understandings of the hero's quest, and who would rather write about building community than fighting the battles before community can be created.