Secretly numinous: The role of Joseph Campbell's monomyth in James Joyce's 'Ulysses', Mario de Andrade's 'Macunaima', and Boubacar Boris Diop's 'Le Cavalier et son ombre'

Myth is often understood as a story belonging to a past era. Another interpretation of the word alludes to erroneous assumptions. Yet, myth is a communicative medium filled with metaphor that enables humanity to articulate and ponder the complexities of human existence. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell blueprints the monomyth, the primordial myth, from which all other myths have derived elements. The monomyth correlates life's rites of passage to moments in the archetypal heroic quest.;This dissertation interprets the novels Ulysses, Macunaima, and Le Cavalier et son ombre through an application of the concepts outlined in the monomyth. Although written by authors who come from different countries and languages, the novels are similar in that they utilize the structure and language of myth to recreate societies that have been occupied by a foreign culture. Joyce, Andrade, and Diop use myth to portray the fragile balance between ego and selflessness in heroes who find themselves at emotional, social, and spiritual crossroads. They examine the tension between these opposites in all types of relationships: from personal and intimate relationships to more abstract relationships, such as the one between a political leader and a people.;My argument is that myth contains elements that are universally accessible and that these authors mean their novels to have a mythological dimension that enables them to provide their cultures with new definitions of self. By presenting these new cultural definitions through the framework of myth, the authors remind us of the characteristics that unite all human beings despite ever-changing contrivances that make the creation of an Other viable.;The foremost parts of the monomyth are the call to adventure , the path of trials, the holy marriage , and the final transformation. The main stages of the hero's adventure are present in these authors' novels. The use of such enduring themes is what gives Joyce, Andrade, and Diop's novels universal appeal and resonance, despite any stylistic and linguistic characteristics that associate them with a specific literary period or genre.