The First Stage of the Female Hero's Journey

The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though written by a male screenwriter, stands as an ideal representation of a modern feminist myth. Buffy Summers is one of the first examples of popular culture that starred a feminine hero. She can be strong and confident while remaining a stylish, teenage girl who talks like a valley girl and walks around in heels as she battles a world of magic and demons. The main male characters in the first three episodes, Xander and Giles, are assistants to Buffy, dependent on her. A girl is the one saving the world.

According to “Prologue: Woman as Hero in Twentieth Century Literature,” the female hero’s journey consists of three distinct stages of physical and mental development: virgin, mother, and crone. In episode one of season one, “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Buffy is just beginning her journey as Sunnydale’s hero. She is the virgin, absorbed with her own schoolgirl interests. Buffy wants only to have a normal life surrounded by friends rather than fiends. She tries to resist her duty and the accompanied responsibility until it becomes her own “potential friend[s]” that are in danger. As she explains to Angel when he tries to warn her against rescuing Jesse, “I’ve got a friend down there. Or, at least, a potential friend.” Once her would-be normal life is threatened, Buffy is willing to fulfill her duty. Not until she accepts this destiny (to a point) does she actually find a social niche among her classmates, Willow and Xander, and even the librarian/watcher Giles. Still, Buffy is insistent on distancing herself from her fate. She tries to explain this to Giles when he attempts to forbid her from becoming a cheerleader in “The Witch.” “I just, wanna have a life,” she protests. Buffy is trying to find a balance between her responsibility to others and her individual wants.

In the first three episodes of this series, Buffy undergoes a form of symbolic separation from her mother, a necessary step in the virgin hero’s journey as maintained by the afore mentioned article. She is forced to keep her calling as Slayer a secret; her mother does not know or even suspect this aspect of her daughter. In “The Harvest,” Joyce bans her daughter from leaving the house after she gets a call from the principal informing her that Buffy has missed classes. Buffy is in a hurry to get to the Bronze in order to save the youth clubbing there from the slaughter of the Harvest She attempts to explain the importance of the situation but is unable to tell her mother the full truth. Joyce just thinks she is being a frivolous, petulant teenager and grounds her. Joyce can’t understand what her daughter is dealing with because she does not know. The mother and daughter are growing distant as a result of Buffy’s secret life. This distance is highlighted in episode four, “The Witch.” Buffy is excited about trying out for cheerleading, yet her mother is completely preoccupied with work. In the middle of a discussion with Joyce, Buffy asks her mother “What am I trying out for?” Joyce had been participating in the conversation yet she has no idea what they were talking about and wasn’t aware that Buffy wants to be a cheerleader again. After Buffy talks to Amy and discovers she trains with her mother every day, Buffy speaks to her own mom about all the time Amy’s mother spends helping her daughter; all Joyce has to say is that she is needs to work. Then later after Buffy finds out she didn’t make the squad, Joyce tries to convince her daughter to join the yearbook team like she did when she was in high school, Buffy has never expressed interest in such an activity and refuses. The conversation ends in hateful remarks on both ends. Buffy may still live with her mother, but they have grown apart. Buffy is searching for her own, separate identity.