Monomyth Archetype

An essay that I will be examining through the framework of a monomyth archetype is “The Step Not Taken” by Paul D'Angelo in which he recollects his thoughts and emotions after a Toronto-based event in which he is faced with a young man in an elevator who suddenly and without provocation breaks down in tears, thus putting the author's public persona that he carries for strangers at odds with his inner ego and sense of social self-worth. The questions that the author has explored in the essay were “Why has the man started crying?”, “What should or could have the narrator done to help?” and “What might the man's reaction have been if the narrator have done anything differently?”. In this essay, I will assign the author a role of a classic archetypical
These guidelines, if personified, would perfectly fill the niche of a magical goddess being or a guide that many classic heroes would rely upon in their decision making process. After the initial unspoken interaction between two strangers in the elevator, the narrator has been tasked with accepting his quest of something I would call a “reactionary”, as in, the person who reacts to an irritant, if I were to use a scientific lingo. At this point, whether the narrator liked it or not, he has fully accepted his quest of deciding which social role he would play – a good Samaritan who expresses some sort of empathy to a fellow human being in distress or an actor who chooses to pretend that nothing unusual is happening and carries on with his “act” that he has planned beforehand – leaving the elevator car at floor ten. That is, in many ways, his first and final test on his very short journey from floor one to floor ten. In the timespan of seconds, the hero had to decide whether or not he will give in his “shadow” and will play it safe by ignoring the troubled man or whether he will become an empathetical being who would share the pain of a
It would seem to me that it is at this stage the author has entered his “inner sanctum” where he could reflect on his social quest. Halfway through the essay the narrator states that “the few people I have told about the incident all say I did the proper thing” which suddenly shifts the entire story away from the elevator scene and somewhere safe where our hero had time to think and reflect on his experience. This is the end point of his journey, as he has returned home where he he had assumed a position of a more experienced individual who has acquired new social wisdom and has shared his knowledge to others, a final part of the monomythical cycle. This entire journey and reflective questions has reminded me of a inner journey undertaken by Jack London's White Fang, where the story follows a wolf pup who explores his surroundings and when taken into care by humans, tries to learn the humans ways and similar to our elevator hero, tries to figure out whether to show empathy to another being's suffering or stay safe and at