In The Linking Myth I stated that I thought that the Jungian approach to understanding the myths in all the stories humans tell proved superior to any linguistic analysis.
Or, to put things in a more familiar Marvel-speak:
“AHRH! Jung crush puny Ferdinand de Saussure!”
For certain writers in ancient Greece, the word “myth” meant essentially the same as “story.” Obviously this isn’t a viable definition today: in general society “myth” usually connotes either something demonstrably false or something that is “truer” than commonplace fact. Nevertheless, even for moderns the idea of “myth” and the idea of “story” remain functionally intertwined.
So what is a “story” to modern readers? To make a comprehensive definition, one can no longer state, say, that it must have a beginning, middle and end, since avant-garde literary works go out of their way to frustrate such expectations.
In his academic book The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov offered a useful definition that might take in even the most “avant” of the avant-garde. Every narrative must move from one state of affairs portrayed at the story’s beginning—which state Todorov calls an“equilibrium”– to some other equilibrium-state by the end of the narrative. This is by far the best statement Todorov makes in this particular book. Still, it could stand improvement, since Todorov does not identify the process that gets the reader from one equilibrious state to another. I’ll fill in that blank with a phrase taken from another academic, Kenneth Burke, who defines all literary endeavor in terms of “symbolic action.”
In my previous essay I mentioned that Krazy Kat was one of the first comic strips to frame something like an “artcomics” approach to storytelling, insofar as it could be judged “avant garde” for its time. However, it was, as much as Superman, a serial entertainment designed to keep readers coming back for more by repeating certain key symbolic concepts, albeit with some inventive variations. If we break down both Superman and Krazy Kat down to their best-known formulae in structural terms, we’d get something like:
A hero continually defends the weak from evil but must masquerade as a weakling, so that his potential girlfriend admires the hero but despises his alter ego.
A mouse continually clobbers a cat with thrown bricks even though this action causes a dog that loves the cat to put the mouse in jail.
Structural analysis, largely founded on the work of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, can take us this far, breaking down the elements of a story in a manner analogous to a linguist analyzing the constituent parts of a sentence. However, as others before me have pointed out, there are problems with this approach. For while one can easily break a sentence down into subject, predicate, prepositions et al, a literary formula can’t be atomized to the same extent. At best it can be broken down into clauses, whether dependent or independent. These days most fans refer to such clauses as “tropes,” though other terms have been proposed—“function” for Vladimir Propp, “mytheme” for Levi-Strauss, and “motif” for Carl Jung.
One can break the above formulae down a little more:
A hero continually defends the weak from evil
A mouse continually clobbers a cat
But neither of these statements conveys anything specific as to the appeal of either Superman or Krazy Kat. Without the full trope, we have no idea why readers would care whether or not a hero fights evil or a mouse clobbers a cat.
Most people know that Jung’s theory of archetypes was not designed to work out the phenomenology of literature, though Jung did make a few literary comments from time to time. I don’t vouch for every element of Jung’s system or all of his specific interpretations of assorted myth-symbols. However, the advantage of Jung over the linguistic specialists is that Jung is always concerned with the total symbolic action of a given narrative, rather than tending (like the aforementioned Levi-Strauss) to break myths down into tropes and then assign them arbitrary Cartesian qualities. Jung’s theory posits particular figures or situations that, by virtue of their long use throughout human culture, have become archetypal. However, Jung’s archetypes are always relational. The archetype of “the Wise Old Man” does not exist apart from its relation to other potential archetypes, such as the “Young Apprentice.”
So in theory it’s possible to establish a level playing field by which to judge both mainstream and avant-garde works by analyzing both in terms of their archetypal tropes, and then making a fair judgment about how well a given work communicates. At the very least this prevents “ad hoc” statements as to quality by either elitists or populists, which usually read something like this:
“Krazy Kat is better because it’s a clever analysis of human foibles”
“Superman is better because it’s made more people happy”
Such judgments are in their own way “formulae” identical in structure and substance to the tropes by which I described the two comics-works. The statements don’t lack all truthtelling value. But in terms of their use in an overall theory of literary quality, they might as well be bumps in a field.
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“If we break down both Superman and Krazy Kat down to their best-known formulae in structural terms, we’d get something like:
A hero continually defends the weak from evil but must masquerade as a weakling, so that his potential girlfriend admires the hero but despises his alter ego.
A mouse continually clobbers a cat with thrown bricks even though this action causes a dog that loves the cat to put the mouse in jail.
Structural analysis, largely founded on the work of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, can take us this far, breaking down the elements of a story in a manner analogous to a linguist analyzing the constituent parts of a sentence.”
So basically, Saussurian linguistics means getting to the gist of things? I don’t know, I think this explains better the success of Superman than pointing out that Superman is a Solar God archetype. Are most people even aware of that? Do they even care? Or do they just read them because – sometimes – they’re well-written, entertaining stories?
I should also like to take this occasion to point out that I detest when people shoehorn mythological discourses into comics criticism. Superman is not a myth! Myths are stories that tell the origin of the world in certain cultures; they preserve tradition and history, they explain things. And more importantly, people have a religious relationship with those stories.
Superman does not explain anything because that role has been usurped in modern times by science. We do no worship Superman. We do not live our lives according to him. We do not build temples to him or sacrifice goats to him. Let’s stop pretending superheroes are descendants of the ancient Gods. They’re not. That didn’t even make sense when Grant Morrison came up with it.
I think people sometimes try too hard to analyse comics.
Myths do not necessarily tell the origin of the world. They can, but that is not their definition – at least, it’s not the most meaningful definition, although it is in the dictionary.
Myths are the stories humans create in order to see the truth in the world around them. They are the way in which we relate to the ultimate mystery – why are we here, what are we doing here, and what is our purpose?
Simply because we pay no worship or ancient sacrifices to Superman doesn’t mean he is not a part of a modern mythology. A mythology is a functioning body of stories that guide people to understanding of the ultimate truth of the universe – religions are forms of mythology, not the other way around. The kinds of entertainment, literature, and stories that have lasted throughout centuries all address this idea of relating to the ultimate mystery. Humanity is passionate about it.
Superman certainly has mythic qualities – but so do all stories. All stories, whether they want to or not, are fundamentally creations that question or seek to explain the reality in which we live. This is such an important question to us that it is ingrained at a subconscious level. Every person wonders. Every person dreams. Every person has a mythology.
I would say that trying to relate ancient seasonal myths to comics in terms simply of “this character is like this character” is not necessarily a basis for qualitative judgement – nor does it offer any particularly enlightening concepts. But relating both ancient seasonal myths and superhero stories to the great mono-myth (to paraphrase Joseph Campbell, which is essentially what I’m doing in this post) in all myths? I find that to be highly fascinating.
“Myths are the stories humans create in order to see the truth in the world around them. They are the way in which we relate to the ultimate mystery – why are we here, what are we doing here, and what is our purpose?”
I think when we reduce the myths to this, we’re banalising them. It puts them on the same level as a joke about why the chicken crossed the road. If myths are simple stories to tell the truth around us, then for me just about any work of fiction is a myth, meaning nothing is anymore.
On the contrary, far from making a myth mean nothing, I think it adds meaning to entirety of our world’s fiction. When understood in this light, it adds an understanding of how all stories are invariably a part of the same whole, and that can be fascinating to ponder.
Also, I think I was inadequate in talking about the definition… Here’s a few excerpts from a Campbell interview:
“Joseph Campbell: People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves.
Bill Moyers: Myths are clues?
Joseph Campbell: Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.
[...]
Bill Moyers: You changed the definition of a myth from the search for meaning to the experience of meaning.
Joseph Campbell: Experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What’s the meaning of a flower. There’s the Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifeted a flower. There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called “the one thus come”. There’s no meaning. What’s the meaning of the universe? What’s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.”
I think what Campbell is talking about that ‘raptural experience of being alive’ is something I definitely feel when I am engaged by a masterfully crafted work of fiction. In that aspect, I think all fiction aspires to be myth.
David did such a good job of defending the idea of “modern myths” that there’s not a lot left for me to say. Which is a rare thing indeed…