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The Hero’s Journey

Arnold van Gennep · 1873–1957

Arnold van Gennep

Separation. Liminal passage. Incorporation. A rite of passage, not a movie beat sheet.

  1. Separation

    Leaving a prior status or place.

  2. Limen

    The in-between, where ordinary law is suspended or altered.

  3. Incorporation

    Re-entry under a new or restored status.

What was proposed

Les Rites de passage (1909) described a three-part structure in rituals that move a person from one social status to another: séparation, marge (limen), agrégation.

What it illuminated

He gave later readers a precise language for thresholds that are socially real: marriage, funeral, initiation, pilgrimage’s in-between.

The Odyssey’s washings, disguises, and bed-test can be seen as incorporation problems without being called a ‘hero’s journey.’

Where it has been criticized

Drawn from a comparative survey of ethnography of its time, with the limits of that archive. Not a key to all narrative.

As a lens

When a story is actually about status change through ritualized passage, van Gennep may illuminate more than Campbell. When it is not, leave him on the shelf.

Stories already in conversation

A refusal is valid information

These relationships are editorial. Similarity of vocabulary is not enough to add a story.

  • Verified example

    The Odyssey

    Already established on the Odyssey page: disguises, washings, and the bed as incorporation.

  • Different level of analysis

    Inanna’s Descent

    The Inanna page: can be laid beside the seven gates without claiming Sumerian authors were illustrating a French anthropologist.

  • Different level of analysis

    The Wilderness

    The midbar can be named as a limen. The books are doing covenant, camp, and land, not a rite-of-passage diagram.

  • Different level of analysis

    The Going Forth

    Pabbajjā is a status change still practiced. That is closer to van Gennep than to Campbell, and still not a French ethnographer writing the suttas.