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To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind. The Hero’s Journey seems a pattern inherent in Story; myths were simply the first stories to be told, or, at least, to be recorded.
I was excited the first time I cam across supplemental material from a textbook publisher for a seventh grade novel that included a lesson on Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey – not for a work on myth or fairy tale, but Jack London’s The Call of the Wild!
That was around 1999, I believe. Once Campbell was embraced by the textbook companies, seemed a solid sign his ideas had gone mainstream.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
I think one of the absolute best stories to exemplify the Hero’s Journey is The Wizard of Oz. I watched it just the other day and was once more taken how the different elements are quite in your face. Of course it’s all the more special because the hero is female, demonstrating that this archetypal adventure is gender neutral.
Michael Lambert
Previous incarnation: Clemsy
Rights and Permissions Threshold Guardian
Joseph Campbell Foundation-
M, this is a brilliant example. Departure, trials, return. With magical helpers. And the component of dream. As J.C. so aptly suggested, dream, waking or otherwise, is the origin of myth. Hence the unsettling, otherwise shadowy aspect of Dorothy’s fraught, yet life-affirming endeavor. Nothing within her experience and for that matter within the film itself is quite right, is it? It’s quite a trippy movie. Our dreams being sometimes, when they are perhaps “big” dreams as Jung described them, so WYRD, if you know what I mean in the Germanic sense? And Dorothy’s “real” life exists within black & white and her dream-myth world in color. Otherwise, it’s too bad these days that the so-called woke and otherwise tediously hyper-gender-aware don’t realize myth has expressed four genders from perhaps its inception. And J.C. knew this. And addressed it. You know, for example, within Kudler’s great editing masterwork, Pathways to Bliss where Joe addresses the consternated female questioner feeling robbed, for whatever reason, of the hero experience. Mostly by way of the ceaseless misreading of the term “hero.” As if the term’s only definition is that of being “valiant.” No. Hero could just as easily, within J.C.’s work, refer to whomever is called. Anyway, well said, here’s to the WOO…!
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Keith – thanks for highlighting the dream component of the Wizard of Oz, which is so much more than “it was all just a dream so never mind” (as when a popular television series kills off a major character, then ratings drop and they need to bring the character back a year later –e.g. Dallas in the 1980s). Even though Dorothy’s experience in Oz was a dream, I’ve never picked up that the adventure wasn’t “true” (though the adults on the farm humored her when she woke, there was a sense that they just couldn’t see with the eyes of child what was so).
No doubt that’s because the dream is in color, with waking life in black-and-white (you hit the nail on the head with that observation, which had not occurred to me before).
I also appreciate your reference to Wyrd (which JC suggests is derived from an amalgamation of the Old High German wirtel – “spindle” – and werden – “to become, to grow”). Reading that a few decades back in Creative Mythology altered my experience of MacBeth and deepened my sense of the Three Weird Sisters beyond caricature to an embodiment of ancient wisdom in the sense of the Norns or the Three Fates.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales
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I think one of the absolute best stories to exemplify the Hero’s Journey is The Wizard of Oz.
Have you ever seen the movie, “Zardoz” (a compounding of “The Wizard of Oz”)? It’s the Hero’s Journey plus all the Hindu/Zen/Eastern/New-Age astral stuff, plus Nietzsche (main character kills his own God)… It’s even got Sean Connery wearing a red leather jock-strap and thigh-high boots. It’s insane.
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Oh my! Never saw Zardoz, which was released while I was in high school.
It definitely seemed both bizarre and risqué at the time, so I’m sure my very religious parents would never have let me see it, but – at least in my memory – I had no interest in catching this movie. Sean Connery was just coming off a decade of playing the suave, polished, playboy spy James Bond – the epitome of masculinity in the 1960s; by contrast, the character he played in Zardoz came off in previews and promotional materials as less masculine ( in his “hippie” wardrobe) and a bit silly.
As I recall, the film was panned by critics, and even audiences leaving the theater after a showing would advise those waiting in line not to waste their money.
Your revelation of “Zardoz” as a conscious contraction of “Wizard of Oz” is news to me; though I doubt it would have made any difference to me at the time, it does provide a lens within which to make sense of elements of the plot should I ever get around to watching it, though I’d say the chances of that are relatively slim.
On the other hand, the well-reviewed musical, “Wicked,” is based on a 1995 “revisionist” novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. I have not read any of Maguire’s sequels, nor seen the Broadway production, but the book is grounded in the mythology of this imaginal reality created by Frank L. Baum. The novel both expands on and challenges Baum’s vision – definitely worth the read, at least in my mind.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales-
Oh it’s weird and kinda campy – to be sure. It definitely reflects the late 60s drug and sex ethos – but then again, considering the nudity in Classical art, (not to mention the homosexuality, pedophilia, and slavery) – one might judge the film as rather tame. Nonetheless, I think it’s highly underrated. I could see how it’s flashiness and novelty might overshadow the deeper qualities of it. It’s one of the few stories that believably speculates on the idea of immortality, and the creation of a Eutopia (including class-consciousness, human indifference to the suffering of others, and biological determinism, which have often been taboo subjects, despite their immense influence in society)… and how that Eutopia could stagnate and decline into a Dystopia.
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Campy is do-able, and I have to admit there are more than a few films that fell flat for me decades ago that ring true today, so on that recommendation I’ll move this up my viewing list.
Just need to get my hands on a supply of those 60s drugs first . . .
😉
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
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On the other hand, the well-reviewed musical, “Wicked,” is based on a 1995 “revisionist” novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire.
Revisionist… does it hate white people and men?
I like progress, and I try to keep an open-mind (my family is Ukrainian, but I still appreciate a lot of Marx and Engel’s thoughts) but I’m not into anger, hatred, bitterness, deprecating others, violence, etc.
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One of my biggest problems with the monomyth as Campbell presented it is the gender roles assigned. I enjoy stories with Heros both male and female, and I like the temptress (or temptation) they experience to be more metaphorical then physical. A Temptress that is just a physical experience is much less interesting to me then a metaphorical temptress like the obsession with the Mirror or Erised that we see in the first Harry Potter.
I’m curious if there are myths that break from the stereotypical gender roles or if we only find that in more modern works
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The two earliest recorded myths we know of, from the same period in ancient Mesopotamia, are the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Descent of Inanna. Joseph Campbell definitely references the latter, in which the Goddess Inanna undergoes the original heroic birth-and-death experience, in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
But Campbell also mentions somewhere that when he was looking for examples of the female hero for The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he turned to fairy tales. One huge reason for that is that myths, even those of Goddess-oriented cultures, were recorded by male priests and scribes, filtered through the masculine mindset. Fairy tales, by contrast – which are often the lingering traces of past mythologies no longer active – are part of an oral tradition handed down in the nursery by grandmothers, nannies, aunts, and moms, so the female perspective isn’t edited out.
Ah – I found the reference I was looking for – this is from a Q & A session with Joe during a monthlong workshop:
When I was writing The Hero With a Thousand Faces and wanted to bring in female heroes, I had to go to the fairy tales. These are told by women to children, you know, and you get a sense of the woman’s journey.
There is a feminine counterpart to the trials and the difficulties, but it certainly is in a different mode. I don’t know the counterpart—the real counterpart, not the woman pretending to be male, but the normal feminine archetypology of this experience. I wouldn’t know what that would be.
WHO WOULD KNOW?
Women will have to tell us the way a woman experiences the journey, if it is the same journey.
Fairy tales are a good place to look for that – but today, there are so many wonderful examples in literature. Women’s voices are finally being heard; seems they are telling us how they experience the journey.

Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
Myths that “show’ us the suffering-that invite us into the suffering have profound affects in my life experience. We suffer -we heal-we share-we reinvent ourselves as a result of suffering. As a story the Passion of Christ rings real, intense, important in showing us how to meet suffering. There are not too many people-and I mean this absent of membership in any religion , cannot be open to the suffering Christ. What he left us as the boon for that suffering is the wisdom that all of the divine [if we wish to express it in those terms] lies inside us-we are the benefactors of that suffering in knowing that it elevates our potential to all be as the gods. This story also left at least at first, the western world with incredible inspiration to make music, to paint, to build. What went terribly wrong was that it became “fact” and not myth and hence as Nietzsche said , “God is dead”-here is the risk of concretizing the myth as Campbell told us. We have sucked the vitality out of one of the greatest myths.
How to recapture the vitality from the myths is what I am interested in pursuing at this point in my life. What is greater than ourselves is the story itself-I am responding to Stephen’s query about what I posted earlier. It seems to me we are in great need of myths at this very moment because simply understanding what we are given by [knowledgeable] scientists is simply not enough, especially when we face the vast universe as but a dram of sand in the great expanse of being. This cannot be all there is. So, I am revisiting the myths that Campbell has shared and re-considering what they can offer at this moment in time. In finding some of this , I sense we can face the hero’s journey [and all its dangers and challenges] once more. By-the-way, this also means the heroic journeys of many women-Hildegard von Bingen being one of them. her story is one of great heroism.
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I appreciate Johanna’s perspective on suffering and the Passion of Christ (the biblical tale of Job, also, depicts unjustified suffering – which indeed seems the lot of all humans).
Campbell describes Christ on the Cross as a bodhisattva figure (describing what he terms the bodhisattva formula as “joyful participation in the sorrows of the world”)
“All life is sorrowful” is the first Buddhist saying, and so it is. It wouldn’t be life if there weren’t temporality involved, which is sorrow – loss, loss, loss. You’ve got to say yes to life and see it as magnificent this way; for this is surely the way God intended it …
It is joyful just as it is. I don’t believe there was anybody who intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” And the way to wake from it is not to be afraid, and to recognize that all of this, as it is, is a manifestation of the horrendous power that is of all creation. The ends of things are always painful. But pain is part of there being a world at all …
“I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful opera – except that it hurts.”
(Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, 1988 Doubleday edition, pp. 80-81)
Myth certainly points in this direction – but also literature. I’m all for reviving the vitality of myth; in our secular age, however, a case can be made that it’s literature that speaks to the human condition and serves (along with certain films) as the medium for myth today.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
Hi Alexander,
Here are a few of the gender role-breaking films that come to mind, and this could go on naming many more modern/contemporary books/films:
–Disney’s Mulan
—Mary Poppins
–Maria in The Sound of Music
–Maya Angelou’s speaker’s-voice in the poem Still I Rise
—Romeo and Juliette
–In many versions of Cinderella, Cinderella is not passive; although she does enlist supernatural helpers and is thus somewhat “magical” herself, she uses her hero’s plan by sneaking out to the prince’s ball, disguising her true identity from her step-mother and step-sisters, the prince, and all in the kingdom. And so Cinderella is not exactly all so completely “innocent” or naive.
–Gretel in Hansel and Gretel. She joins proactively with Hansel to secure her and her brother’s rescue.
—From Out of Africa
—Alice in Wonderland
–Clara in The Nutcracker Suite‘s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” (I wrote and published a paper on this–it is one of my favorites.)
Sheherazade in Tales from 1001 Nights
With Mythic Bliss!
Mary Ann
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Hi Joanna,
I really enjoy this post. What really speaks to me is when you say, ” We have sucked the vitality out of one of the greatest myths.” Motifs in Christianity are motifs many myths and other religions share. Jesus on the cross can be likened to Odin hanging on the tree. I look forward to hearing/reading more from you about the suffering/passion of Christ.
Best,
Mary Ann
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Thanks, Mary, for emphasizing Johanna’s point about the suffering of Christ.
All too often those of us drawn to myth tend to overlook or ignore the Judeo-Christian-Islamic mythological nexus that informs modern society. Could be we are just drawn to what is sparkly and exotic, whereas the myths of the culture we grew up seems just the same-old same-old to many of us.
That’s a fruitful area for research for mythologists (maybe those from a culture outside the western nexus could better explore this, unencumbered by our baggage). Campbell does touch on this in Occidental Mythology (the third of four volumes in The Masks of God tetralogy), and Thou Art That. And then David Miller, professor emeritus of comparative religion and friend and colleague of Joe’s who served on JCF’s Board of Directors, goes there in his Christs: Meditations on Archetypal Images in Christian Theology, and Hells and Holy Ghosts: A Theopoetics of Christian Belief . . . and, of course, Carl Jung really dives deep throughout his Collected Works.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
Favourites are Artemis’ encounter with Actaion (instead of the tale told the other way around) where the goddess punishes his lustfull gazing with transformation and a cruel death by his beloved dogs and admired friends, and Diana’s King of the Wood (Rex Nemorensis) who, in serving the goddess, has to kill her priest to become the next priest, killed by his murderer who will succeed him. Mythical dancing.
Time is a reciprocal dimension: t'=t*√(1-V²/C²)
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Mars – though Frazer gets short shrift from academics these days for his sloppy scholarship and intuitive leaps (as does Robert Graves), he still speaks to me. I suspect Campbell’s love of The Golden Bough (which he sometimes referred to as his “bible”), along with his affection for Oswald Spengler and Leo Frobenius, might have something to do with the academy’s tendency to hold JC’s work at arm’s length.
The myth of Actaeon and Artemis is also one of my favorites, primarily because it is so simple and straightforward a story, and yet so powerful. It was one of the tales I loved telling my students in the years I taught Literature at the junior high level because of their response: never a question of anyone not “getting it.”
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
Favourites are Artemis’ encounter with Actaion (instead of the tale told the other way around)
Who tells it the other way around?
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Much more is known now and better explained by C.M.C. Green in Roman religion and the cult of Diana at Aricia. Frazer’s appproach was more ‘romantic’, and all scholars from that time up to WWII were framed in that view. Hard core science (relativity, quantum mechanics, electronics, &c) has surpassed this all. Comparative mythology, as explained by Campbell, is both somewhat romantic and solid science. Just like anthropology, archeology and more, there is just not so much ‘hard’ evidence anymore. The academic world demands this. But as mythology touches the middle layer (instinct – emotions – ratio), there is a tendency towards ‘other’ explanations other then ‘classic’ prooven facts.
The A & A story is very educational towards young men. Let alone the greek pantheon wereoff one guy (Z) causes the vast majority of havoc and spill.
Time is a reciprocal dimension: t'=t*√(1-V²/C²)
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The A & A story is very educational towards young men.
JC described Acteaon’s bad end as being symbolic of him being unprepared to receive knowledge from the higher realms… which is cool. But perhaps you are hitting an important point too… maybe the story has a stronger element of “Watch your libido, boys, or the dogs of your passion might get you into trouble.”
one guy (Z) causes the vast majority of havoc and spill.
I resonate. I think it makes sense to approach mythology with the idea that these stories are being created and circulated at a time and place of honor culture… where men were probably more chauvinistic then they are now… So it would make sense that they create system of stories that revolve around an Alpha.
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Mars writes:
one guy (Z) causes the vast majority of havoc and spill.”
and androoshka responds
I think it makes sense to approach these stories with the idea that these stories are being created and circulated at a time and place of honor culture, where, on average, men were more probably more chauvinistic then they were now… So it would make sense that they create system of stories that revolve around an Alpha.”
I’m not so sure about that, androoshka. I suspect that dynamic is as present today as ever.
So many masculine figures in positions of power today have been manifesting the Zeus archetype and indulging in bad behavior, most often in the form of sexual improprieties: Harvey Weinstein (who was so powerful that film stars, producers, agents, and others in Hollywood referred to him as “God,” apparently only partly tongue-in-cheek); the late Roger Ailes, who ruled at Fox News with an iron hand, pressed the female talent for sexual favors; Mark Hurd, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, forced to step down over sexual harassment claims; former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned before he could be impeached for harassing female employees (his predecessor, David Paterson, admitted to multiple affairs in office, and his predecessor, Elliot Spritzer, resigned in 2008, after his relationships with call girls were revealed); multiple other governors in both red and blue states; Jeff Zucker, who led CNN;
. . . and then there’s Donald Trump, in a class all his own, accused of sexual conduct by 26 different women (and on record spending vast sums to keep two of them quiet – canceled checks over his signature admitted as evidence in court – and several currently in litigation).
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. The differences between these individuals in terms of politics and religion vary greatly – but what they have in common is all occupy positions of power, and abused that power. (Note the havoc many Zeus wannabes create isn’t necessarily limited to the sexual arena; those were just the most immediate examples at hand).
In the past, this has been written off as “boys will be boys,” with women often given the blame when these situations became public knowledge; the difference today is that this behavior is being called out by those unwilling to remain victims – something Zeus didn’t have to contend with much.
That’s the power of myth: those stories don’t address anomalies exclusive to a time and place in the long ago, but speak to the human condition. These archetypal mythological patterns are always humming along under the surface, still compelling human behavior today.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales-
So many masculine figures in positions of power today have been manifesting the Zeus archetype and indulging in bad behavior, most often in the form of sexual improprieties:
Hi Stephen,
Sorry for the long delay in my response. I haven’t had consistent internet access the last few weeks. But to respond to your post, I wouldn’t equate womanizing or sexual proclivity with “Honor Culture”. As far as my understanding of the subject goes, Honor Culture is more about not tolerating “insults”. Here’s a blurb from an Oxford site about it:
“Honor” means different things to different people at different times. In modern societies, honor refers primarily to a form of social status that attaches to integrity and sound character. But honor has an older meaning still found among some groups today—a form of social status founded on the willingness and ability to use force. Honor in this second sense can result in two types of violence. The first occurs predominately between men (indeed, honor is often equated with masculinity). An honorable man will not hesitate to use physical force to combat any assault, theft, insult, or other attempt at subordination of himself or his group (family, gang, or nation). For honor, unlike the more stable value of dignity, can be won or lost. Honor rises and falls when one man (or group) publicly challenges the willingness of another to physically defend himself, his intimates, or his property and hence his right to be treated as an equal. To uphold his honor a man need not beat his opponent, but he must display a willingness to fight him. Cultures of honor (those in which actors compete for status based on physical force) are far from uniform, but work by anthropologists, historians, sociologists, criminologists, social psychologists, and others reveals several shared characteristics. One is that honor is a central source of status, which largely explains the apparently trivial causes of many violent conflicts: the issue is not really the taking of a few cents of change but whether one can person disrespect another publicly and get away with it. Honor cultures too are typically antipathetic to law and legal officials: a man must stand up for himself and not rely on others to do so. Traditional honor cultures tend, also, to be highly patriarchal, subordinating women and treating their sexuality as family property. In such cultures, a second type of honor violence may be found—men beating or even killing their female relatives for loss of chastity or other conduct that threatens male rule. These acts of violence committed in the name of family honor likely have a long history in human societies. Today, they are concentrated in predominately Muslim nations and among their emigrants to Western countries. In short, all honor cultures have high rates of violence principally among men; some also have high rates of violence by men against their female relatives. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0160.xml
So yeah, there’s probably a correlation between male chauvinism, and perhaps female “conquests” (like you mentioned with Zeus), but I don’t think that’s the crux of Honor Culture – or it’s most significant elements and affects.
I think it’s more about showing their community how well they live up to a code. In a perverted expression, I’m sure it was used to show others how “tough” or “superior” one is. “Macho macho maaaan!” (Although, I would venture a guess that there was an honor code for females in a lot of places too, but it was different and probably revolve around chastity and obedience). In a humbler and more sustainable form, my guess is that the honor codes were used to show integrity and promote communal cohesion by expressing adherence to a social order… and they varied from time-to-time and place-to-place.
So, back to my original argument… that we aren’t as into honor culture today. For evidence, I would site dueling (which happened in America up until around the Civil War). Two, “respectable” people fighting each other over a gesture or some words. Sure, that still happens. People get into fights and shoot each other in bars or parking lots, but it ain’t like the presidents are doing it anymore. There will always be thugs and brute violence – but it’s not accepted amongst suburban family men, or men in political power, or corporate executives and bankers. It’s socially taboo to do that… unless you are at the Oscars? IDK. LOL. Peace.
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androoshka,
Your point is well taken about honor culture – I’m sorry I overlooked that. Glad that’s not our default setting, despite lingering traces (like you reference to “the Slap” at the Oscars – nice catch).
There’s definitely an association between honor culture and a patriarchal mindset, which is much more conducive to the constellation of that Zeus archetype (though I would suggest that patriarchal culture is an expression of the underlying archetype, rather than the other way around – and with that settled, I’ll weigh in on the chicken-or-egg question next. 😉).
Even as we move away from an overt patriarchal orientation, I am fascinated at the staying power of this archetypal dynamic, which suggests it is embedded in the human psyche.
In response to critics (pro and con) identifying Campbell as a Jungian, he argued otherwise (on at least one occasion claiming “I am not a Jungian; I am a Schopenhauern – or a Nietzschean”; but then, even Carl Gustav himself is reputed to have said “Thank God I am Jung, and not a Jungian!”). Nevertheless, Joe does note that while Jung is not the final word, he does provide the best clues. Indeed, Campbell served as my introduction to C.G. Jung; I can’t imagine grokking the fullness of Joseph Campbell’s work without at least some familiarity with Jungian concepts.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales
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Thanks Mars, for pointing me to C.M.C. Green’s work (Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia); though I do appreciate Frazer’s “romantic” approach, I’m looking forward to more solid scholarship on the subject.
Good description of Campbell’s work – you capture the nuance well.
Stephen Gerringer
tie-dyed teller of tales -
Favourites are Artemis’ encounter with Actaion (instead of the tale told the other way around)
Who tells it the other way around?
In this story it’s Artemis’ viewpoint, not Actaions. Most other myths, if not almost all the others, men hunts the woman (plural). The rare other one are the stories of Iananna, the Sumer queen at the very brink of civilisation. As with Artemis, this points to a complete other perspective in the days of hunters and gatherers. It may have happened that in the course of time, during the build up of larger civilisations, more ‘masculine’ properties were favourable, and hence a shift towards ‘knights conquering the world’ (Sargon the Second, to name one), as a ‘mythologysation’ (somesort of english) of the man and the woman. All conquering civilisations are masculine, currently employing in eastern Europe as an example. And like Sargon’s empire, in due time, nothing will remain nor remembered.
Time is a reciprocal dimension: t'=t*√(1-V²/C²)
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I can’t find any source telling the story, “the other way around” (where Artemis stumbles on Actaeon). If you have one, then please provide it.
As far as the other “viewpoint”, if you find a myth about a girl bathing and then discovering a peeping-Tom, then also, please let us know (source is again appreciated). Thanks!
Also, here are some alternate interpretations of the myth (with accompanying sources):
- In Greek Mythology, Actaeon is widely thought to symbolize ritual human sacrifice in attempt to please a God or Goddess:[32] the dogs symbolize the sacrificers and Actaeon symbolizes the sacrifice.
Actaeon may symbolize human curiosity or irreverence.[citation needed]
The myth is seen by Jungian psychologist Wolfgang Giegerich as a symbol of spiritual transformation and/or enlightenment.[33]
Actaeon often symbolizes a cuckold, as when he is turned into a stag, he becomes “horned”.[34] This is alluded to in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives, Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and others.[35][36] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actaeon
- ACTAEON, son of Aristaeus and Autonoë, a famous Theban hero and hunter, trained by the centaur Cheiron. According to the story told by Ovid (Metam. iii. 131; see also Apollod iii. 4), having accidentally seen Artemis (Diana) on Mount Cithaeron while she was bathing, he was changed by her into a stag, and pursued and killed by his fifty hounds. His statue was often set up on rocks and mountains as a protection against excessive heat. The myth itself probably represents the destruction of vegetation during the fifty dog-days. Aeschylus and other tragic poets made use of the story, which was a favourite subject in ancient works of art. There is a well-known small marble group in the British Museum illustrative of the story. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Actaeon
It looks like many people have interpreted the myth in many ways, and that JC falls in a “Jungian” camp.
- In Greek Mythology, Actaeon is widely thought to symbolize ritual human sacrifice in attempt to please a God or Goddess:[32] the dogs symbolize the sacrificers and Actaeon symbolizes the sacrifice.
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Also worth noting is the Family Tree of the Royal House of Thebes on that page. I’m interested in the source. Could Actaeon be a blue-blooded aristocrat? Are we praising the exploits of another elite from ancient history? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case… adds some more spice to this topic.. and tweaks my Marxist whiskers.
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