Monomyths In 'The Step Not Taken By Paul D' Angelo

Monomyths are one of the leading archetypal examples commonly found in literature. It is a quest or a journey braved by a hero that takes them through three stages; separation, initiation and reintegration. One of the clearest examples is the essay, the Step Not Taken by Paul D’Angelo. The narrator represents the hero on a journey to understand the misery of other people he comes across. Through all of this, the hero rebounds with an epiphany that changes his outlook.
In the beginning, our hero embarks on his journey with the separation stage. Here he is given a call to adventure; he comes across a young man in an elevator who is first described as a normal, typical junior executive. The hero is not aware of his upcoming adventure until the young man unexpectedly began to sob “Then it happened… I was astonished to see the young man drop his briefcase and burst into tears” Shocked and unsure of how to react, the hero got off the elevator with an emotional combination of confusion and shame. “I stood in the hallway, a bundle of mixed emotions, wondering what to do.” The hero begins to wonder about the possibilities; he wonders what the man was going through to warrant the outburst of tears. His conscious was unsettled and it is because of this that the hero decided to pursue his adventure.
He represents the final stage of reintegration by advising readers to reach out to individuals who are in distress, as he regrets not doing so to the young man. The hero in this story did not complete his quest because he did not help the young man that forced him to begin his journey; the hero apologizes to the young man from within his story for what he did not do. “… I was wrong, dreadfully wrong, not to step forward in his time of need… I’m sorry” The hero has successfully gone through the monomyth stages and has come out of his journey with his newfound gift; however, his quest is left