In the wonderful interview series “The Power of Myth” with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, which we’ve discussed here, Campbell describes the state of the Protagonist at the beginning of many stories as being one of “discomfort.” There’s something unsettled in their life – and they are either aware of discomfort or they are doing what they can to repress / suppress their roiling emotions ‘inside.’
Here’s a great poem that seems to describe a Protagonist in Act I, sitting right at the pivot point between openly acknowledging their discomfort with their ‘ordinary life’ or pushing away from the call of adventure and retreating into the lie they are living. The poem is written by Mark Strand, former Pulitzer Prize winner, Fulbright scholar, and former Poet Laureate. You can buy his book here.
The Continuous Life
2 thoughts on ““The Continuous Life” by Mark Strand”
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Nice work.
Especially like the placement of the mundane domestics right up next to love in this bit …”Say there will always be cooking and cleaning to do,That one thing leads to another, which leads to another”
You zeroed in on what I did about this poem: the Protagonist acknowledging his unease with ‘ordinary’ life, but noting, ironically, how easy it is to let oneself slip into the mundane, allow the day-to-day to become an endless chain of empty events that consume a life.
There is security in habits, no doubt. But if the Protag is honest enough to admit that in sum these mundane habits lack “meaning,” when the call to adventure comes, will they have the courage say yea or retreat into the norm?
That’s just one description of a Protag’s Act I tipping point – but it’s one many people could identify with.