The Heroine's Journey

An evolving body of work exploring The Heroine's Journey narrative through the lens of compulsory heteronormativity and diet culture in the 21st century

The Heroine's Journey

What Is The Heroine's Journey Arc?

First expressed in Maureen Murdock's The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness, the Heroine’s Journey Arc is a narrative structure that expresses the protagonist’s journey. Unlike The Hero’s Journey, which is a linear “up and out” structure, the Heroine’s Journey focuses on the protagonist’s inner struggle to heal, reclaim, and ultimately self-actualize her sense of self.

The Heroine’s Journey Arc has been re-written and re-expressed a number of times since it’s conception in 1990, but ultimately features a series of stages where the protagonist first shifts away from herself, aligns with an in-authentic expression of self, overcomes a series of trials and tribulations and arrives at “success,” only to realize she has betrayed herself in the process. The protagonist then embarks on an attempt to go “back” to an authentic embodyment and expression of self, but must ultimately begin anew in order to reconcile everything she now knows about herself, her world, and her authentic expression.

Developing Body of Work

The Heroine’s Journey’s developing body of work exists within a narrative structure that translates the original Heroine’s Journey Arc through the lens of queerness and womanhood in the 21st century. Like the original, there are seven main sections in this narrative structure: The Shift, External Alignment, Illusary Success, The Descent, Yearning for Reconnection, Reconciliation, and Union. The works included in The Heroine’s Journey represent moments within the protagonist’s character evolution as they move through their narrative.

The Shift

The Shift

In The Shift, The protagonist begins exploring what she wants and how she must to move through the world to achieve that goal within the confines of the world she exists in. She begins to reject parts of her authentic self in order to more quickly, efficiently, or successfully move towards that goal.

The goal might be something specific, but is often more abstract, like “success,” “love,” or “happiness.”

External Alignment

The protagonist experiences both praise and rejection in the world she is navigating, and begins to identify and align in some way with what is externally validated.

In it’s original conception, in this stage the protagonist is described as “driven to seek control over themselves and others in an inhuman desire for perfection.” She resents and distances herself from parts of herself and her life that do not align with her perception of “perfection.” It is in this stage that the protagonist begins to intentionally become estranged from her inner self.

Biting At My Edges, 2024

48"x50" , watercolor

On view at Château d'Orquevaux.

Not for sale.

The Road of Trials

The protagonist experiences various obstacles all related to achieving various accomplishments that she believes are steps towards accomplishing her goals. She struggles with inner conflict regarding how she navigates these experiences, but ultimately is successful.

Good Luck Babe, 2024

32"x12.5" , acrylic and glitter on wrapped canvas

$ 900.00

$900.00

Illusory Success

Illusory success refers to a cognitive bias where achievements that are perceived as profound and deserving are built on unsustainable or incomplete realities. In this part of the narrative, the protagonist realizes that in her success, she has betrayed herself or her values in some way. Despite her accomplishments, the protagonist feels limited and disillusioned about her original goals. In this point in the narrative, the protagonist is unhappy but cannot yet imagine a different path.

This Means You Did It Right, 2024

approximately 50" x 60" , watercolor

Please contact the artist directly for more details and purchasing information.

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The Descent

When crisis occurs, all of the protagonist’s carefully curated “strengths” that lead to her previous success overcoming obstacles fail her. The protagonist must reconcile parts of herself she previously abandoned.

Yearning for Reconnection

The protagonist yearns for past versions of herself as her perspective shifts.

I'd Do Anything Just To Be With You , 2024

APPROXIMATELY 50"X60" , WATERCOLOR

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The protagonist struggles at times to navigate this shift, oscillating between grief for what she has left behind and commitment to and celebration of her character’s evolution.

Velvet Connection, 2024

44"x33" , WATERCOLOR

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Reconciliation

The protagonist continues to experience shifts in perspective, no longer assigning moral value to past versions of herself. She is inspired to strive for true integration.

Untitled (Reconciliation)

APPROXIMATELY 55"X65" , WATERCOLOR

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Untitled Figure (1)

18"x24" , WATERCOLOR

Please contact the artist directly for more details and purchasing information.

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Union

The protagonist finally achieves an integrated self. She continues to work to actively maintain it, realizing she is grounded and protected in her sense of self.

We're Not Angry At You, 2024

11"x14" , watercolor

$250

We're Not Angry At You is a painting about not only accepting but celebratig past, present, and future versions of self. In times of great personal growth and change we often look back at our past selves and grieve what we had to leave behind or what we might have gone through. We may look back in anger at mistakes we made, or even in pity at the foolishness we displayed--things that the version of us now, knowing what we do, would never do or choose to believe.We forget that without those selves, we wouldn't have this one...they got us here after all.

This painting is about the power in accepting those past selves as whole and complete versions in their own right, acknowledging them for doing the best they could with what they had, and celebratig them for making it through and leading us into the self we are now. We're Not Angry At You urges us to do just that: look back and say "thank you, you did it!" knowing that in the future, a new self will be saying the same thing about the you that exists right now.

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