Empire Of Memory Hero's Journey

Countries around the world have their own myths. Myths were made to explain everything, even the unexplainable to a layman. Through myths, they can relay how they perceive their own culture related to the subject of their myth. Myths also become a metaphorical narrative of their life. The structure of hero’s journey obviously shows that. The hero’s journey becomes the uniting agent despite the differing perspectives. It shows the universality of human experience no matter what culture.

Eric Gamalinda’s Empire of Memory is about two men being assigned to create a book that will trace the history and lineage of Marcos as the fated rulers of the country which will bring them to an island called San Miguel. Connected with that is another part

Empire of Memory can be considered as a metaphor of the martial law era. Isla de San Miguel becomes a microcosm of Philippines; Jose Zabarte taking on the role of Marcos and Antonio Zabarte portraying the NPAs.

This book follows the narrative that Campbell made about hero’s journey. More than that, there also exists the contemporary monomyth that glues Empire of Memory along with books also made during the martial law period.

The monomyth originated from the rites of passage from the indigenous tribe, “a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation-initiation-return.” (Campbell 36). He formulated the idea of the monomyth based from the Jung’s collective unconscious. In an interview, Campbell detailed Jung’s importance in the theory “Within each person there is what Jung called a collective unconscious [my italics]. We are not only individuals with our unconscious intentions related to a specific social environment. We are also representatives of the species homo sapiens. And that universality is in us whether we know it or not. We penetrate to this level by getting in touch with dreams, fantasies and traditional myths; by using active imagination.” (Jung, qtd in Rensma

Since Empire of Memory is a book about the Martial law-era made during 1992, post-martial law books need to be analysed to see if they also follow the same format as Empire of Memory.

As a modern novel, Empire of Memory is a grounded book with no fantastical leaning. In Campbell’s theory, supernatural help is a part of the hero’s journey. The idea of a supernatural help in this book will be out of place but to be considered as a monomyth, it is needed.

The term hero’s journey is also a problematic part in this research due to the word hero. A question rises whether the novel’s protagonist, Al, is a hero. A hero “is a personage of exceptional gifts” (37). Al is simply portrayed as a normal person in the novel who just happens to work under the government. What can be considered as his exceptional gifts exactly? Al is a questionable hero, and applying the term hero’s journey to him can be quite problematic.

As this is a research focusing on the monomyth elements of the primary book, Empire of Memory by Eric Gamalinda, there is a need for a secondary book outside of the primary book. The secondary book will be Killing Time in A Warm Place as it is also about martial law. The main theory will come from Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand