Wild Moneyless Hero

Daniel Suelo, Cheryl Strayed, and Joseph Campbell

In class this semester we have followed the unorthodox and pious life of Daniel Shellaberger (nee’ Daniel Suelo) through Mark Sundeen’s biography The Man Who Quit

Money. We have discussed how Sundeen’s book analyzes Suelo’s life through Joseph Campbell’s theory about the hero’s journey and how Sundeen argues that a character

like Suelo is best understood according to mythological criteria€”which emphasize change, growth, and the development of potential€”rather than modern ones, which

emphasize money, power, and comfort. Among other things, Sundeen notes how the blunder of eating a poisonous cactus (and later morideros) functioned similar to what

Campbell would see as the call to adventure; how a failed suicide was an attempt to shun or refuse that call; how a failed relationship with a younger Matthew was a

meeting with a Temptress; and finally, how these events resulted in Suelo’s decision to live completely without money.

More recently, we have begun to learn about the perambulations of the at-the-time-young Cheryl Strayed in her 2012 memoir Wild. While we are still in the process of

reading her account of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (while carrying the heavy burden of her mother’s death, her splintering marriage, and perhaps the heaviest

backpack ever to be carried from California to Oregon), we can also glimpse how her story is similarly flecked with mythological elements: from the blunder that ed

up the journey, to the trials and difficulties that she undergoes while on the trail, and eventually to her return back to the world.

Assignment Write a 5 to 7 page essay that synthesizes these three sources and that demonstrates how Daniel Suelo and Cheryl Strayed do or do not correspond to Joseph

Campbell’s theory. Would Joseph Campbell think that Strayed and Suelo’s stories are hero myths? Be sure to support your answer by using Campbell’s schema of

separation, initiation, and return. When applying the components of Strayed and Suelo’s story to Campbell’s thesis, be as specific as possible.

Important: it is not enough to identify the separation€“initiation€“return elements of these books; these components are rather obvious. Instead, you should give a

deeper analysis that looks closely at how these stories fit into the following list of subcategories. Let me stress this point: The more you analyze and develop your

answer according to the following subcategories, the more persuasive it will be. Recall the following from Campbell:

Phase 1. Departure. The Call to Adventure. Refusal of the Call. Supernatural Aid. The Crossing of the First Threshold. The Belly of the Whale.

Phase 2. Initiation. The Road of Trials. The Meeting with the Goddess. Woman as the Temptress. Atonement with the Father. Apotheosis. The Ultimate Boon.

Phase 3. Return. Refusal of the Return. The Magic Flight. Rescue from Without. The Crossing of the Return Threshold. Master of the Two Worlds. Freedom to Live.

Also important: It is not necessary to analyze every single one of these subcategories. In fact, many of them do no even apply to the Suelo/Strayed narratives. As we

have discussed in class, Campbell’s theory€”like all theories€”is a schema of the general and not of any particular, which means that you should focus on the categories

and sub-categories that seem to be the most present and instrumental in the stories; likewise, it means that you should eliminate or outright ignore the ones that are

not present or are de-emphasized. Also, the sub-categories may not appear in the linear sequence that Campbell has them in (for example, you may find that The Belly of

the Whale category occurs in the Initiation phase) so try not to get stuck on making things fit into the neat, first-to-last order that Campbell has them in. A

balanced paper would focus on at least two of the subcat