The Hero's Journey Essay

What do Batman, Harry Potter, and Dorothy Gale all have in common? While our initial thought might be their strength, courage or integrity, there is one more common factor that connects not only these three characters, but perhaps heroes in all stories. According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, all stories follow the very same pattern: “The Hero’s Journey”. While this monomyth can easily be recognized in many books and movies — not all stories about heroes follow this pattern to a tee. Unlike in stories like The Wizard of Oz, the hero of the story is not always the main character. The novel Moth Smoke is an example of a fictional work where the hero is one of the supporting characters, and the stages of the hero’s journey are not

as easily spotted. In this story, the hero is instead the main character Daru’s lover, Mumtaz. And even though her Journey follows many stages of Campbell’s monomyth, it is instead a reversed hero’s journey where the goal is to transform away from the heroic part of herself, rather than transforming into a wiser and more polished version of the same hero.
In order to identify the qualities that make Mumtaz the hero of this novel, we must first have a basic understanding of what the word hero truly means.

According to dictionary.com, a hero is “a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.”. This description provides a sufficient general idea what a hero is, but I believe that it is also important to note that being a hero does not necessarily imply perfection. Like Mumtaz, heroes can be flawed beings with just as many, or perhaps even more, imperfections as anyone else. What makes them different, however, is their desire to put others’ needs ahead of their own. The hero’s journey that most heroes follow, according to Campbell, is divided into three major stages, namely: departure, where the hero is in the midst of leaving their comfort zone to enter a new and unknown world, the second stage: initiation; where the hero must face a set of challenges in order to reach their goals, and the third stage, the return to the familiar world; where the hero enjoys the ultimate boon or achievement, and can revel in their freedom to

live.
In Moth Smoke, we do learn about the key events in Mumtaz’s life that have led to her current situation, but her backstory is not as elaborated as that of the main characters. What we do know about her is that she met her husband, Ozi, in New York City during her senior year in college. Until she became pregnant, Mumtaz describes their married life as “perfect”. They lived in a one bedroom apartment with a view of Washington Square Park, him working at a big law firm, her having an editorial job at a magazine. She describes how their life was filled with love, dancing, and quiet conversations over wine. She felt as if she could be completely open with him, more so than with anyone else. The downturn in their relationship occurred when she found out that she was pregnant. She described her pregnancy as a kind of martyrdom, a sacrifice for something noble — for her husband. And when the baby came, the quiet conversations she enjoyed slowly faded and so her love was replaced with resent. “I felt neglected, resentful at being the one left at home when I hadn’t wanted to have a baby in the first place.”, she explains (152). As her resentment grew, so did her longing to break free from the now limited life she had found herself living. While some might argue that Mumtaz is anything but a hero in this story, the qualities that might make her a monster in others’ eyes, including her own, are what make her the true hero. Mumtaz is flawed like all of us, and she does not claim that she is perfect. She might not be the ideal hero, but perhaps a more realistic one. When she decided to have a baby, for example, she did not do it for her own selfish wants — but despite her own wants. A hero is someone who puts others’ lives ahead of their own, and by agreeing to have the baby for her husband, Mumtaz made the ultimate sacrifice. If she wasn’t a hero, she would not have had the child for her husband in the first place. She explains, “I could see how much he wanted to have this baby, and it moved me. I decided to take another week to think about it. Then another week. And the more I thought about it, the less power I seemed to have to end it. I felt guilty. More than that, I felt selfish.” (150). Her thought process shows that her decision to have the baby was an act of pure selflessness. In order to be a good wife, she sacrificed herself to satisfy her husband’s longing to become a father. Another example of her heroism is her decision to stay with her husband and her child, even though she herself was miserable. As the years passed, she knew that she didn’t feel anything for her child nor her husband, but yet she still stayed with them. If she wasn’t a hero, she would not have stayed with her husband as long as she did for the sake of the baby. Convinced that her indifference towards her child was wrong and abnormal, she instead suppressed her own needs in order to do the right thing. “I knew there was something wrong with me. I was a monster. But I didn’t want to be. Staying with the baby was the right thing to do.”, she explains (153). After her move to Lahore, however, her longing for independence drove her to the point where she couldn’t settle for being just a mother and a good wife anymore. At the same time, the heroic side of her couldn’t let her leave the baby. The only way for her to find her way back to her old self while still staying with her family was to start living a double life. This is where Mumtaz’s reversed hero’s journey begins.
In the first stage of Campbell’s hero’s journey, the hero starts off with a “call to adventure”, which is when the hero starts off in the normal everyday life, and is then provided with an opportunity to leave their comfort zone and enter the unknown. Mumtaz’s call to adventure is when she is provided with the opportunity to become an investigative journalist under the pseudonym Zulfikar Manto. According to Campbell, the phase that follows the call to adventure is the refusal of the call. But because Mumtaz’s storyline and background are limited, there is not enough information to determine whether or not this stage existed in Mumtaz’s journey; nor do we know how her call to adventure came to be. Another aspect that differs from Campbell’s monomyth is the order by which the phases occur. Instead of the call to adventure being followed by the introduction of a supernatural aid, Mumtaz’s next phase was the crossing the first threshold. This is the point when the hero actually leaves her old world and finds herself in an unknown and possibly dangerous new world, where the rules and limits are unknown. This is when Mumtaz’s double life truly begins, and just like Campbell’s description of this phase, this new world is indeed a dangerous and risky adventure. Working as Zulfikar Manto, Mumtaz investigated the dark side of Lahore, taking great risks by speaking to policemen accused of murder, prostitutes in dark alleys, as well as interviewing lawyers that provided safety to fugitive women from abusive marriages. For the first time in years, she was starting to feel like her old self. “I was back, I was finding myself again, and I was being honest about things I cared for passionately”, she explains (158). Her journalism is another example of her heroic nature. By writing her articles, she is making a difference in her community by raising awareness about things that most people in Lahore would rather keep covered. She risks her life for her articles just to get people talking about the important issues in her corrupt city, and because she was writing under a pseudonym, it is clear she did not write to satisfy selfish cravings like fame and recognition. She does it because she is making a positive change in society. The impact that she has on their community is noticeable as she receives both awards and death threats for her work. While Mumtaz herself doesn’t believe that she is a hero, she still wants to be one. She feels that she can make a bigger impact on their community than she can as a mother, which ultimately drives her to choose her journalism and her own well-being over motherhood in the end. While leaving her child might seem like an unheroic choice on her part, we might also be able to see it as merely an exchange in heroic contributions, and her leaving may therefore be justified to a certain extent. Like us, heroes are not perfect, and they excel in and gain satisfaction from different things in life. In this case, Mumtaz thrived more as a force of change for her community as a whole, but less so for her child. Being the more realistic type of hero, we cannot expect Mumtaz to be heroic in every aspect of her life.
While Mumtaz’s job as a journalist was her initial step towards creating a double life for herself, her transformation away from her role as a hero is also greatly influenced by the main character, Daru. Her first introduction to him corresponds to the supernatural aid phase in Campbell’s monomyth. This is the event where the hero meets his or her guide, or magical helper. While Daru is not magical, he does play a key role in helping Mumtaz reach the goal of her journey. The essence of the hero’s journey is for the hero to be transformed in the end, and Mumtaz’s goal is to find her way back to the person she was before she dedicated her life to her family. Daru is the one who helps her accomplish this goal by providing her with a safe place to share her true feelings without judgment. She can be herself around him, someone who actually listens and takes an interest in her as an individual, rather than a wife or mother.
In the next stage, initiation, Mumtaz storyline has entered the “Belly of the Whale”, this is defined as the final separation between the hero’s old world/self, and the new. In this stage the hero truly shows their commitment to the journey and willingness to undergo their transformation. This is when Mumtaz finally begins an affair with Daru. While there was always a connection between Mumtaz and Daru, they were always careful not to cross any boundaries when spending time together. The first weeks after their first encounter, their meetings, albeit secretive, had always been on the friendlier side. But as their attraction grew, they started to balance on the fine line of casual flirting, and actual adultery. “When we get home we kiss, again on the lips, soft and tender and brief, like a kiss between friends, except that I always kiss my friends on the cheek” (132). Their relationship had developed into an emotional affair, rather than a physical. It isn’t until the night on the roof where their affair becomes both physical and emotional. This is where Mumtaz’s double life is more or less “complete”. No matter how miserable she had been through the years, she had never once been unfaithful to her husband, because the heroic side of her had always forced her into staying committed to their life together. The fact that she was actually willing to commit adultery is what truly shows her willingness to break free and complete her transformation.
As the story proceeds, Mumtaz eventually leaves Daru, partly due to his heroin addiction, and partly because her guilt had become too much to bare. After realizing that her husband had known about their affair all along, and that he was happy to hear about Daru’s arrest, she decided to leave him as well. “I made up my mind. I decided that I couldn’t stay in this house any longer, that I needed to abandon my family to save myself,” she explained (242). In doing so, she decided to leave her son behind as well, as she believed that he would be better off without a mother, rather than having an emotionally distant mother like her. Mumtaz’s confrontation with her husband corresponds to the “atonement with the father” in Campbell’s monomyth. This phase is where the hero has to confront the ultimate power in her life. This is the centerpoint of her journey, as all her decisions have led to this moment of change. EXAMPLE
As a result of leaving her family, her character undergoes what Campbell refers to as “apostasis”. According to Campbell, this stage is where the hero dies a spiritual death. Throughout the book, Mumtaz had managed to live a double life, balancing between her old and new self, but when she decided to leave her family, she left the old heroic side of herself behind. She has fully transitioned into the non-heroic self, hence her heroic side suffering the spiritual death that Campbell is referring to.
According to Campbell, the final stage of the hero’s journey is where the hero return to their old and familiar world transformed. Mumtaz, however, does not return to her old world, and instead she creates a new life for herself. Mumtaz ends her journey with the “freedom to live” phase. This is the phase where the hero lives in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past. This is made clear as Mumtaz explains “I’m finding I can live with myself, which shocks me more than anything. Maybe I am a monster after all” (244). This line shows that Mumtaz has found peace within herself. She has accepted that while it might make her a “monster,” she is content with the choices she has made. Since becoming a mother, she constantly worried that she was never good enough as a mother, and that she didn’t love her child enough. Ever since leaving, she has let go of the pressure to be the perfect mother and wife, so she can finally focus on just being herself. She accepts that she is flawed, and that is okay.
START WITH SOMETHING ELSE.

It is important to have heroes in our lives, they give us a goal to strive towards, and a role model to look up to. It is equally important to remind ourselves that no one is perfect, not even the heroes who we look up to. In real life, heroes are the people that stand up for what is right and sacrifice their own wants and needs to help others. The fact that heroes perform many heroic actions, doesn’t imply that they have to be heroic or successful in every aspect of their life – at least not in real life. We have to remember that heroes are human too, and we can’t always help what we feel, or in Mumtaz’s case, what we don’t feel, but it doesn’t make someone less of a hero, it just makes them honest and real. Unlike many fictional characters, and real life people, Mumtaz is honest about her flaws, and she takes responsibility for her decisions. Some might believe that a quality like this is more praiseworthy than a person who seems to lack, or perhaps even disguise their flaws. I would much rather look up to a more relatable hero that has flaws and is honest about them than a hero with unrealistic characteristics. This novel reminds us that there are many kinds of heroes, and in real life — none of those heroes are

perfect.