Campbell’s Broken Model: Women in the Role of the Literary Hero

Author

Kori Brierley-Bowers

Date of Award

2016

First Advisor

Brendan Mathews

Second Advisor

Jamie Hutchinson

Abstract

The Hero archetype is one well known in media and popular culture. The brave man who sallies forth into the unknown to defeat some great evil. This archetype is sadly the product of a broken model, one that was laid out by the author Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell creates a model for the Hero’s Journey and in doing so attempts to create an archetype that is solely meant for the male gender. In this Thesis I take apart Campbell’s model to show that women can play the role of the Hero just as well as men. The model itself is not the definitive be all end all as many would like to assume, rather it is a helpful guideline in creating a plot and journey for the characters. To show this I will be analyzing three authors, Zelazny as the control with a stereotypical male hero, Tolkien and Pratchett with their female heroes. Finally I will showcase a piece of my own work called The Adventures of Abbey and Alley, an Urban Fantasy piece with two sisters as the hero.

Recommended Citation

Brierley-Bowers, Kori, "Campbell’s Broken Model: Women in the Role of the Literary Hero" (2016). Senior Theses. 1038.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/sr-theses/1038