The Return to Adventure

Today, it being one of those damp, dreary, slightly rainy Shabbat afternoons, I spent the day curled up in my favorite chair in the living room reading. It was wonderful. It was in this state that I finished Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, a sort of dark and dreary book itself, though in a wonderful, fantastic kind of way. Imagine Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz meeting the dankest of the London sewers, the hero entering a world which reveres rats and beasts that lurk underneath cities, where nearly no one is trustworthy and where your world is considered Below. This is Neverwhere, the place where those who fall through the cracks end up.

Aside from being an incredible read, Neverwhere made me realize something. I learned this year in my Myth and Folklore class about Campbell's theory of the monomyth. There is basically a cycle of events that usually occurs in the monomyth. There is katabasis, which is the call to adventure, the threshold guardian which the hero must defeat before entering the adventure, the helpers and trials and tests along the way, the threshold guardian for the return, the return - where the hero comes home, usually with a boon of some sort -, at one-ment with the Mother Goddess/female figure, reconciliation/reunification with the father/father figure.

This theory works wonderfully in those tales which end at the very close of the adventure, leaving the reader with the famous, "and they lived happily ever after. The end." But did you ever find yourself wondering if they really lived happily ever after? How can that be the true end? Has the life of the protagonist been complete? No. So what happens after that?

Neil Gaiman in his book adds two more elements to Campbell's theory; elements which I feel are extremely important and which add so much depth to the character and to the story. These are 1. a dissatisfaction with the world the hero returns to/realization the hero has changed and no longer belongs in his original world and 2. the return to adventure.

The hero in Neverwhere, a London dwelling Scotsman named Richard Mayhew, returns to London Above after having spent many trials and tribulations in London Below. The trials and tribulations, however, have actually just been growing pains for Richard, who comes out of London Below a new person. He has newfound confidence and maturity. If the analogy to The Wizard of Oz were to be made, he returns as the Cowardly Lion Who Has Now Got His Courage. He has learned that there is so much more to life than the everyday getting up, going to work, coming home, going to sleep, getting up, going to work, coming home, going to sleep routine. Unable to find meaning in his old, comfortable life, Richard chooses to return to the land which forced him to grow up and become a true man, regardless of the fact that he was technically a full-grown man from the start. He chooses to return to hardship, to trials, to tests of his courage and stamina, to the place where everything dark and foul lives, because it is there where he finds excitement, surprise, adventure, meaning. In London Below, things actually matter, choices matter, who you associate with matters. And because of this, this land in the sewers of London, this land between the cracks, is the true happily ever after for Richard Mayhew.

It is this sort of happily ever after that I feel really rounds out a story. Because if you think about it, it's true in real life as well. Whenever a person goes through an experience which greatly changes him, he finds it difficult to find meaning in his old way of life. He cannot go backwards, only forwards. You can never really return. I guess that's my point. You may be able to physically go back to where you came from, but you can never really go back to the way things were. Not if you live life linearly. There is no going back. Only forward. And this is why the adventure story, the hero story, cannot always end with the return home. That is not the true ending of the story. It is being cut off before it reaches its finish. The true end is the realization that life cannot go on backwards. Only forward. The hero cannot return home mentally and emotionally, for he has changed. He is a different person than he was when he started out, when he had his katabasis, when he first met that initial threshold guardian.

Look at Beowulf. He had his adventure. He defeated Grendel. He defeated Grendel's mother. And then he went home, yes, and eventually was made king. But did he stop? Did he say, "And then I lived happily ever after. The end." No! He didn't! He went and fought a dragon. Because he was a hero and heroes can only go forward, not back. He couldn't return home and be regular Beowulf like before. He couldn't even go home and be King Beowulf. No, he had to be King Beowulf the dragon slayer right 'til the end. He had to return to adventure.

And this is my point. The return home is not enough. To end a story there is cheating the hero. There is more, the hero now must lead the life of a hero. He must return to adventure.

And then he is truly living happily ever after. For can a hero truly be happy when he is not being a hero?