Drive

There’s a certain formula we return to when we’re storytelling, or listening to one– long story short, a hero is called to adventure outside his comfort zone, goes through many trials, is beaten down, finds inner strength and resolve in the dark hour, and returns with a new fire to overcome them to triumph in victory. We see this narrative in TV shows and movies, we see it in comics and novels, we might even see it in our own minute-by-second life story. This is known as the ‘monomyth’, or hero’s journey. Are we “monomythic” in that sense? Professor Craig Batty, head of Creative Writing at the University of Technology Sydney, helps unpack Jono unpack the concept of the monomyth.