Monomyths In 'The Step Not Taken By Paul D' Angelo

Monomyths are one of the leading archetypal examples commonly found in literature. It is a quest or a journey braved by a hero that takes them through three stages; separation, initiation and reintegration. One of the clearest examples is the essay, the Step Not Taken by Paul D’Angelo. The narrator represents the hero on a journey to understand the misery of other people he comes across. Through all of this, the hero rebounds with an epiphany that changes his outlook.
In the beginning, our hero embarks on his journey with the separation stage. Here he is given a call to adventure; he comes across a young man in an elevator who is first described as a normal, typical junior executive. The hero is not aware of his upcoming adventure until the young man unexpectedly began to sob “Then it happened… I was astonished to see the young man drop his briefcase and burst into tears” Shocked and unsure of how to react, the hero got off the elevator with an emotional combination of confusion and shame. “I stood in the hallway, a bundle of mixed emotions, wondering what to do.” The hero begins to wonder about the possibilities; he wonders what the man was going through to warrant the outburst of tears. His conscious was unsettled and it is because of this that the hero decided to pursue his adventure.
In the initiation stage, the hero stews in his thoughts. He is unsettled by the thought of the man going through such turmoil and why he did not say anything to the young man. “…What could possibly have overwhelmed him to such an extent that he was unable to keep from crying out?” The hero expresses a strong desire to know why, and ascends on his journey to discover if his reaction was right or wrong. Upon asking several friends and analyzing the situation that he had witnessed, he was informed that leaving the man alone was the proper response. “The few people I have told about the incident all say I did the proper thing, the best thing, by leaving the young man alone. But they are wrong.” The hero made the decision to go against the opinions of his peers; he has come to the realization that with everyone being so consumed in their own lives, humanity has forgotten to care about the despair of others. “…like so many things in life, I know now what I should have done then. I should have thrown caution into the winds and done the right thing. Not the big-city thing. The right thing. The human thing. The thing I would want someone to do if they ever found my son crying in an elevator.” The hero’s epiphany has caused him to come to his realization.
When the hero comes to his final stage, he realizes that he had made a mistake.
He represents the final stage of reintegration by advising readers to reach out to individuals who are in distress, as he regrets not doing so to the young man. The hero in this story did not complete his quest because he did not help the young man that forced him to begin his journey; the hero apologizes to the young man from within his story for what he did not do. “… I was wrong, dreadfully wrong, not to step forward in his time of need… I’m sorry” The hero has successfully gone through the monomyth stages and has come out of his journey with his newfound gift; however, his quest is left
unfinished.
We learn about the lessons of humanity and how our compassion gets lost in day to day life. The hero comes to the realization that he should have helped the young man instead of removing himself from the situation out of shock and confusion. This realization will forever affect the hero and he has chosen to share his newfound gift with the rest of the world by writing his essay. The hero’s journey reminds me of other characters in other literature because it is common to be confronted with a situation and wonder if you made the correct choice. The inner struggle of the protagonist is a popular theme within literature that helps us understand and deal with our own struggles. At this point the hero has ended his journey and will hopefully make a better choice the next time he is thrusted into an unusual situation.