Psychoanalytic Criticism and the Heroine's Quest

Jacques Lacan

Both Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan believe that the unconscious largely factors in to our everyday. Lacan believes that this unconscious is highly structured and can systematically be analyzed. Carl Jung also believes in the unconscious, but took his theory one step further with the "collective unconscious," a universal part of our psyche that stores humanity's knowledge, experience, and images.This inherited "collective unconscious" holds archetypes (powerful themes and common characteristics).

Lacan believes that all individuals are fragmented, that a "whole" self is not attainable, and that this occurs during the "imaginary" phase (birth to 6 months), a pre-verbal state that holds our wishes, fantasies, and images. During this time, we are united with our mothers, and rely on her for everything. Because of this, we have no clear image of "self." Lacan states that literature offers us a chance to return to this "imaginary" phase.

The Hero's Quest is a monomyth, a basic pattern found in many narratives around the world; it is also found in Jung's collective unconscious. The hero recognizes that a lack of something exists, forcing him on a quest to resolve this. While on this quest, he meets a magical helper and is subjected to tests. After passing these tests, the hero receives his reward.

The Hero's Quest represents our search for "self," and the "wholeness" that Lacan claims we are unable to achieve. Joseph Campbell created a popular version of this monomyth in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: a masculine journey made popular by Star Wars, The Matrix, and Spiderman.

Maureen Murdock reconfigures this masculine journey to create The Heroine's Journey. This is more of an internal journey than Campbell's, and reflects Lacan's theory that we are searching for the "wholeness" of the imaginary order. According to Murdock's journey, the heroine of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, is incomplete, because she ends her journey as 100 per cent masculine.