The Heroine's Journey in the Binti trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor PDF Free Download
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Univerzita Karlova
Pedagogická fakulta
Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury
BAKALÁŘSKÁ PRÁCE
The Heroine’s Journey in the Binti trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor
Cesta hrdinky v trilogii Binti od Nnedi Okorafor
Anna Baladová
Vedoucí práce:
PhDr. Tereza Topolovská, Ph.D.
Studijní program:
Anglický jazyk se zaměřením na vzdělávání (B0114A090013)
2025
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Odevzdáním této bakalářské práce na téma Cesta hrdinky v trilogii Binti od Nnedi Okorafor
potvrzuji, že jsem ji vypracovala pod vedením vedoucího práce samostatně za použití v práci
uvedených pramenů a literatury. Prohlašuji, že jsem při její tvorbě nepoužila nástrojů umělé
inteligence jiným způsobem, než je uvedeno ve vyjádření, které je součástí textu práce. Dále
potvrzuji, že tato práce nebyla využita k získání jiného nebo stejného titulu.
V Praze 8. 7. 2025
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I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor PhDr. Tereza
Topolovská, Ph.D. whose support, encouragement and helpful feedback were crucial for me
during the writing process. I am sincerely thankful for all the time and effort she has invested
in helping me finish this thesis and for suggesting Binti as the focus of this work.
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ABSTRAKT
V této práci aplikuji jednotlivé fáze archetypu popsaného v knize Hrdinka v nás (1990)
na příběh současné YA literární hrdinky v africanfuturistické trilogii Binti (2015 - 2019) od
nigerijsko-americké autorky Nnedi Okorafor. Bakalářská práce si rovněž klade za cíl
prozkoumat, zdali je tento model, formulovaný před více než třiceti lety, stále relevantní v
současné literatuře. Monografii Hrdinka v nás napsala jungovská psychoanalytička Maureen
Murdock pro využití v terapii žen a pro pomoc ženám najít štěstí a naplnění ve společnosti
postavené na maskuliních hodnotách. Podobně jako její “předchůdce” Monomýtus od
Josepha Campbella, kde se ženské postavy řeší jen z hlediska jejich vztahu k mužům,
Hrdinka v nás čerpá poznatky z mytologie, pohádek, starověkých symbolů a Jungových
archetypů. V teoretické části mé práce popisuji dané fáze Hrdinky v nás, poskytuji informace
o díle Nnedi Okorafor a jejích motivech a poté pokračuji s analýzou v praktické části.
Výsledky mé analýzy ukazují, že i když Hrdinka v nás a Binti sdílejí některé ze svých
hlavních témat, především co se týče vývoje identity hlavní hrdinky, poněkud omezující
povaha tohoto rámce zabraňuje jeho univerzální použitelnosti. Navíc striktní rozdělení
identity hrdinky na ženskou nebo mužskou stránku je limitující z hlediska rozmanitých a
komplexních postav, které se čím dál častěji objevují v současné YA literatuře.
KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA
Binti; Nnedi Okorafor; Maureen Murdock; ženská stránka osobnosti; mužská stránka
osobnosti
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ABSTRACT
In this thesis, I apply the stages of the archetype described in The Heroine’s Journey
(1990) to a journey of a contemporary YA literary heroine in the Africanfuturistic trilogy
Binti (2015 - 2019) by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor. This bachelor thesis also
aims to examine if a model written over thirty years ago is still relevant in contemporary
literature. The Heroine’s Journey theory was formulated by a Jungian psychoanalyst,
Maureen Murdock, for the purposes of therapy to help women in their quest to search for
happiness and fulfilment in a society built on masculine values. Similarly to its
„predecessor“, The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell, in which women appear only in
relation to men, The Heroine’s Journey also draws on mythology in addition to fairy tales,
ancient symbols and Jungian archetypes. In the theoretical part of my thesis, I describe
Murdock’s theory, provide background for Okorafor‘s work and its motifs, and then proceed
with the analysis of the literary text in the practical part.
The results of my analysis conclude that while Murdock’s framework and Binti share
some of their main themes, mostly regarding the identity development of the main
protagonist, the framework‘s restrictive nature keeps it from being universally applicable.
Moreover, the strict division of the heroine’s identity into either feminine or masculine is
quite limiting for diverse and complex characters increasingly common in contemporary
YA literature.
KEYWORDS
Binti; Nnedi Okorafor; Maureen Murdock; feminine; masculine
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Obsah
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8
Theoretical Part.................................................................................................................... 10
1 Nnedi Okorafor and her work ...................................................................................... 10
2 Maureen Murdock and her Heroine’s Journey ............................................................ 13
2.1 Structure of the Journey ........................................................................................ 14
2.1.1 Separation from the Feminine and Identification with the Masculine .......... 16
2.1.2 Road of Trials ................................................................................................ 17
2.1.3 Illusory Boon of Success ............................................................................... 19
2.1.4 Feelings of Spiritual Aridity and Initiation and Descent to the Goddess ...... 20
2.1.5 Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine ........................................ 22
2.1.6 Healing the Mother/Daughter Split ............................................................... 23
2.1.7 Healing the Inner Masculine Within and Integrating the Masculine with the
Feminine ...................................................................................................................... 24
Practical Part ........................................................................................................................ 26
1 Binti: Synopsis ............................................................................................................. 26
2 Binti’s first Heroine’s Journey .................................................................................... 28
2.1 Leaving her homeland .......................................................................................... 28
2.2 Attack of the Meduse and negotiations ................................................................. 30
2.3 Life at Oomza Uni ................................................................................................ 32
2.4 Homecoming ......................................................................................................... 35
3 Binti’s second Heroine’s Journey ................................................................................ 38
3.1 Exploring the Enyi Zinariya way of life ............................................................... 38
3.2 Loss of family and fighting for peace ................................................................... 40
4 Final integration of the old way of life with the new .................................................. 42
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Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 44
Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 46
Primary Literature............................................................................................................ 46
Secondary Literature........................................................................................................ 46
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Introduction
The search for a universal framework for the journey of a mythical or literary hero
began long before Murdock published The Heroine’s Journey (1990). It was Joseph
Campbell who introduced and popularized the framework with his monograph The Hero
with a Thousand Faces (1949). Campbell also managed to incorporate the archetype into
mainstream media when his concept of Hero’s Journey became an inspiration for George
Lucas’s Star Wars films (Kappel and Lawrence 22). The fact that Campbell’s framework
did not consider women undergoing the journey was voiced by Jungian psychoanalyst
Maureen Murdock, who, in turn, decided to formulate her own more inclusive framework.
When deciding about the focus of my thesis, I have taken an interest in literary
frameworks, especially The Hero’s Journey. However, after further research, I found
Campbell’s Monomyth to be an overused topic, and I did not relate to Campbell’s exclusion
of female heroines. Compared to Monomyth, The Heroine’s Journey is less explored and,
while remaining rooted in feminine mythology and experience, more open to all genders.
In this thesis, my main aim is to prove that Murdock’s concept of the Heroine’s
Journey is applicable to literature same as Campbell’s has proven to be, with my primary
focus being on contemporary young adult literature. The chosen body of literature I use to
prove my hypothesis is the Binti trilogy by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor,
which consists of three young adult Africanfuturistic novellas Binti (2015), Binti: Home
(2017), Binti: Night Masquerade (2018) and one short story Binti: Sacred Fire (2019).
Young adult, or YA, literature is mainly defined by the age range of its readers who
are mostly between 12 and 18 years old. It consists of many subgenres ranging from fantasy
and graphic novels to non-fiction literature. In the 21st century, this genre heavily reflects
the rising demand for diversity in media, which gives way to YA books featuring people of
color, or LGBTQ+ characters as their main protagonists. The current century also shifted the
focus of YA books from the Western-oriented part of the world to other non-Western
cultures (Goldstein and Ostberg). Such is the case with the work of Nnedi Okorafor and her
Binti trilogy. Binti is an Africanfuturistic piece of fiction, so with it’s unusual setting for
futuristic scenarios it becomes an appropriate example of the complexities of contemporary
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YA literature. Thus, it serves well as the subject of my analysis as it is modern in both its
year of publication and its themes and focused on a non-western setting.
The central focus of this bachelor thesis is to inquire whether Murdock’s HJ is
flexible enough to fit the experience and journey of modern complex literary heroines. As it
was stated above, the Binti trilogy is a series of Africanfuturistic novellas. Africanfuturism
was defined by the author Nnedi Okorafor, and it draws on an already established subgenre
of Afrofuturism, but is more rooted in African culture with minimal Western influence. The
subgenre did not exist at the time of the publication of The Heroine’s Journey, so it only
reflects modern literary style. Because of Okorafor modern and complex approach to science
fiction literature, Binti, with its complex main protagonist, is a suitable example for my
analysis.
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Theoretical Part
1 Nnedi Okorafor and her work
As Hibler and Luebering state, Nnedi Okorafor is a Nigerian-American writer who is
most often associated with Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism. She was born in 1974 in
Cincinnati, Ohio as a child of Nigerian immigrants who fled to the United States because of
the Nigerian Civil War (Hibler and Luebering Nnedi Okorafor). In her interview with
Matthew Guterl, Okorafor shares more information on the early stages of her life. She says
that after the war’s end, her parents decided to stay in the United States but often brought
young Nnedi and her siblings to Nigeria to meet their family and learn about their culture.
During these trips, Okorafor became fascinated with Nigerian cultural beliefs, particularly
those that were taboo and enigmatic.
In conversation with Gutrel, Okorafor also talks about her time growing up in a
predominately white suburb in Chicago and how she turned to the athletic route rather than
the intellectual and soon became a semi-professional tennis player and a track star. After
graduating high school, she began studying pre-med at the University of Illinois, wishing to
pursue a career in entomology. At the age of thirteen, Okorafor was diagnosed with scoliosis,
which then progressed more as she got older. In her freshman year of university, she was
scheduled to undergo spine surgery to repair her scoliosis. Following the procedure,
Okorafor woke up paralyzed in her hospital bed. Having been forced to learn how to walk
again, she found comfort in writing down stories which took place in the country of her
ancestors.
After returning to her studies in 1993, Okorafor joined a creative writing class in
which she wrote her first piece of fiction. In the interview, Okorafor talks about the time
when she started writing her first stories, saying that she drew on her knowledge of Nigerian
folklore and mysticism and finally felt free to talk about the previously forbidden aspects of
her heritage. After writing Nigerian-centered young adult fantasy for a while, she began to
notice the way the African continent was portrayed in other works of fiction. Okorafor
observed that at those times, Africa was portrayed as the land of the past, which went against
her own experience with modern technology in Nigeria. She states this as her reason for
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writing science fiction during her lecture at The Center for Values in Medicine, Science and
Technology of The University of Texas.
So that was my reason to start writing science fiction, that’s how I started because I
wanted to see these things and they were not being shown at all, especially from the
perspective that I was most interested in and that I was familiar with. Also, point of view
was important as well. I wanted to see science fiction from the perspective of people
who were in Africa for once as opposed to an outsider coming in and observing things.
(Okorafor Nnedi Okorafor: At Home)
According to Hibler and Luebering, Okorafor published her first book in 2005, a
young adult fantasy novel called Zahrah the Windseeker revolving around an outcasted girl
with superpowers. Since then, she has published many award-winning novels, such as her
first adult novel Who Fears Death (2010), for which she won a World Fantasy award in
2011. The story, written in the Africanjujuist
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genre, follows a brave heroine with the power
of shape-shifting in a post-apocalyptic Africa. Another work of hers that Hibler and
Luebering point out is her Akata fantasy series. The series consists of 3 novels: Akata Witch
(2011), Akata Warrior (2017) and Akata Woman (2022), in which Okorafor focuses on the
life of a Nigerian-American girl with special powers on a hunt for a serial killer. When
talking about her writing process with Gutrel, Okorafor stated that she never plans what she
is going to write, but that despite that, certain themes accompany all of her novels - and that
is issues of identity and body, technology, nature and inner strength. Apart from these
themes, there is a recurring motif in her novels of black girls and women leaving their
destined paths and going on to create their own.
Okorafor continues to discuss in the interview that while profiled as an Afrofuturist,
she felt that some cultural aspects she used in her work were not being acknowledged in the
definition of this genre (Writing for a Broken World: A Conversation with Nnedi Okorafor).
Wabuke (2020) states in her article that Afrofuturism is a term coined by a white American
critic, Mark Dery, in 1993 in his essay Black to the Future, where he defines it as a sub-
genre of speculative fiction that deals with African American themes in the context of 20th
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Africanjujuism is a sub-category of the fantasy genre, which, along with imagination, enforces already
existing African spiritualities and mysteries
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century technological culture. Wabuke follows this by criticizing Dery’s definition as it
seems to dismiss Black futuristic fiction outside of the Black American diaspora or any other
Black fiction that has no relation to the White Western culture.
Okorafor, dissatisfied with the definition of Afrofuturism, started using a different
term, that being Africanfuturism (AF). In her blog post from 2019, Okorafor formulates her
definition of this genre. AF is a sub-genre of science fiction, in which this sub-genre “is more
deeply rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches
into the Black Diaspora, and it does not privilege or centre the West.” (Okorafor 2019) She
expands this idea more by pointing out the differences between AF and Afrofuturism. While
afrofuturistic stories such as Marvel’s Black Panther or Olivia E. Butler’s Kindred are
influenced by Western culture or tell stories of African Americans, AF stories center and are
set only in Africa (Okorafor Africanfuturism Defined).
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2 Maureen Murdock and her Heroine’s Journey
As Emerson’s article Innocence as a Super-Power states, in 1949, a comparative
mythologist, Joseph Campbell, published his most famous work, The Hero with a Thousand
Faces, in which he described an archetypal heroic journey based on his study of mythology
as well as Carl Jung’s analytical psychology. Campbell’s theory, widely known as The
Hero’s Journey or Monomyth, has since become the most famous and cited description of a
heroic quest/journey (in comparison to e. g. Lord Raglan’s The Hero: A Study in Tradition,
Myth and Dream) (131).
In the years since its publication, Campbell’s Monomyth has seen its share of
criticism. Mary R. Lefkowitz critiques Campbell’s views on women regarding the Hero’s
Journey in her article “The Myth of Joseph Campbell”. She states that Campbell’s archetypal
female is seen as passive and giving, a Mother Earth figure, which doesn’t align with views
on women in the late 20th century and the 21st century. As Lefkowitz claims: “It is clearly
the powers of the female body that Campbell wishes to celebrate and not the force of the
female will or determination of mind.” (432-433).
Another case of criticism is voiced by Maureen Murdock, an author, educator and
Jungian psychoanalyst residing at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, where
she also teaches memoir writing. In her monograph The Heroine’s Journey (2020), Murdock
describes her experience working as a therapist consulting women who have undergone the
heroic journey by succeeding in a challenging male-oriented workplace. Murdock has found
that after experiencing such success, these women were left exhausted and suffering from
stress-related illnesses (1). The impact this approach had on these women prompted her to
seek an explanation of this phenomenon from Campbell in 1981. Joseph Campbell has given
her the following answer:
In the whole mythological tradition the woman is there. All she has to do is to realize that
she’s the place that people are trying to get to. When a woman realizes what her wonderful
character is, she’s not going to get messed up with the notion of being pseudo-male (The
Heroine’s Journey, 2).
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Murdock (2) claims that with The Hero’s Journey being ego-driven and male-centred,
when women try to undergo the journey, they are left with emotional damage as they follow
a journey that denies their nature. She felt that women needed a new model that would take
account for their needs and their psychology. Drawing from her personal experience
undergoing the heroic journey, she has formed a structure for this new model that is in form
inspired by Campbell’s model but differs in content. Murdock also emphasizes that the
Heroine’s Journey is not limited purely to women; it is not a Hero’s Journey from the
perspective of a woman, but more so a model for anyone who worries about what the
material and progress-minded society has done to our psyche (3-4).
2.1 Structure of the Journey
In the following chapters, I will provide more insight into the structure of The
Heroine’s Journey
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and describe each step of the journey in more detail to provide the
necessary background for the subsequent analysis. As Murdock defines in her monograph
The Heroine’s Journey (1990), the structure of HJ is a “circular path that moves clockwise”
(3) and emphasises that it is possible to go through several stages at once. At its beginning,
the heroine parts with her feminine nature, be it physically, by separating herself from her
family/mother, or psychologically (Murdock 3-4). Following this rejection, the heroine
begins associating herself with traditionally masculine values, such as power, prestige or
financial equity and chooses male mentors (Murdock 6).
According to Murdock, after a period of success on the masculine path, the heroine
begins to feel a sense of emptiness within herself. Some find that this need for success has
been the result of their internalised obligation to please their parents, especially their fathers
(6-7). At this point the heroine begins her descent, usually signalled by a period of rage or
grief, during which the heroine might feel the desire to spend more time surrounded by nature
or in isolation with herself, looking for a way to reclaim pieces of herself that had been lost
on her journey towards success (8).
After the period of descent, the heroine decides to heal a wound within herself that
Murdock calls “the mother/daughter split”, which “may or may not involve an actual healing
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Further referenced as HJ
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of the relationship between a woman and her own mother” (9). This period however focuses
on healing the heroine’s relationship with her feminine nature as she begins to nurture herself
and starts to reclaim her feminine intuition, sexuality and creativity (9). Murdock concludes
the journey with the integration of masculine and feminine and emphasises that while the
step of healing the heroine’s wounded feminine part was important for her inner
development, it is crucial not to discard what she has gained from her heroic quest. In
Murdock’s view, the heroine needs to view it as a part of her journey, rather than the goal
and find a way to combine both the feminine and masculine aspects of her nature (11).
Murdock calls this “the sacred marriage of the feminine and masculine” (11).
Fig. 1. Maurren Murdock, The Heroine’s Journey, Shambhala Publications, 2020, p. 5.
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2.1.1 Separation from the Feminine and Identification with the Masculine
According to Murdock (15), a mother is seen as the primary reason for a child’s
positive and negative development. In the case of the negative development, it is the mother
who is expected to take the blame. She states that while society places enormous importance
on the role of motherhood, it has failed to provide mothers with the means to be successful
at it, that being financial support and stability (Murdock 15).
Murdock identifies our society as androcentric, in which the world is viewed from the
male perspective (16). As women start to view themselves according to the male standard
they find themselves lacking in male values and as they try to abolish their deficiencies they
end up injuring their feminine nature. They start to devaluate themselves and Murdock
believes that this devaluation starts with devaluating their mothers as they are their primary
feminine role models (16).
This idea is supported by writer Judith Pildes in her article “Mothers and Daughters”,
which she published in 1978. In the article, Pildes writes about the mother-daughter
relationship and how our society has made it impossible for daughters to relate to their
mothers on a level that surpasses their familial relationship. She states that daughters adopt
their perceptions of their mothers from their fathers and brothers, indicating again the
influence of patriarchal society on motherhood (1-2).
Murdock claims that this devaluation signals the first step of the heroine’s journey:
separation from the feminine. She sees this separation in two degrees, one being the
separation from the personal mother, and the other being the separation from her feminine
nature (19). To make this separation easier a daughter might subconsciously make her
mother out to be vengeful and possessive. This phenomenon is further explored in The
Female Hero (1981) in which Pearson and Pope point out that in traditional fairytales, like
Hansel and Gretel or Cinderella, the villain/captor is the stepmother or other woman figure
that the heroine needs to slay to survive (105, 120). Murdock finds that the most challenging
separation is the one where the heroine has to part with a mother who is supportive, nurturing
and a positive role model. The heroine views her mother as a perfect deity that she cannot
ever measure up to and starts to feel entrapped by her. She feels the need to leave her and
find her own identity (25).
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While rejecting her “personal” (19) mother the heroine also rejects the feminine
aspects that she associates with her mother. According to Murdock, these aspects include
creativity, passion, intuition, playfulness and nurture. Many women who have perceived
their mothers as emotional decide to be in control of their emotions, in fear of being seen as
hysterical and destructive. The heroine becomes afraid of the term feminine as the society in
which she grew up has deemed it inferior (25-26).
As a woman separates herself from her mother/feminine nature she begins the
traditional heroic quest. She starts to look for allies, which Murdock identifies as any male
role models the heroine could emulate, these could range from a father or lover to a teacher
or a male-identified woman (39). Murdock further states that the most important factor of
this stage is the heroine’s personal relationship with her father. Growing up she seeks his
acceptance and measures herself in relation to him. When a girl is encouraged by her father
and is accepted by him, she develops a positive relationship with her masculine nature which
leads to positive ego development (34).
The effect of the father-daughter relationship on a woman’s life is further explored by
Linda Leonard in The Wounded Woman, in which Leonard describes the result of a father’s
ignorance towards his daughter. This insufficient interest from a father or a male mentor
drives the woman to build a strong masculine ego on her own, strive for achievements and
to be in control. Leonard calls this pattern the “armored Amazon” (18). She states that while
the armor that these women have built around themselves protects them, it also guards them
from their feminine feelings (Leonard 18).
2.1.2 Road of Trials
When the heroine internalizes masculine principles she begins her road of trials. In
The Heroine’s Journey, Murdock characterizes this as a period of leaving the comfort of the
heroine’s family and her home and going on a solitary journey in search of her identity (49).
Before taking the journey, the heroine was prone to blame others for her circumstances,
namely her parents, but as she undergoes her road of trials, she is the one who has to make
the decisions. On this road, she will discover her strengths and her weaknesses and learn
how to overcome them (Murdock 49).
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The heroine will be met with obstacles that Murdock sees as both of the outer world
and of the inner world of the psyche. She imagines these obstacles as dragons guarding the
heroine’s success, telling the heroine she cannot succeed and how unqualified she is for this
success (50). In the case of outer world obstacles, these “dragons” might take the form of ill-
wishing coworkers, teachers or bosses. In Murdock’s opinion, the most dangerous of these
dragons is “the societal reptile that smiles and says, ‘Yes dear, you can do anything you want
to do,’ while continuing to sabotage her progress with few opportunities, low salaries,
inadequate child care and slow promotions.” (Murdock 51).
There are three key obstacles of the inner world that influence the heroine’s way
towards success: the myth of dependency, the myth of female inferiority, and the myth of
romantic love (Murdock 51). According to Murdock, the myth of dependency refers to
society’s attitude towards a woman’s place in the family. Unlike boys, girls are not
encouraged to be independent; in fact, they are expected to maintain dependent relationships
with their families. These relationships then transfer to their partners and children (52).
This opinion is shared by psychologist Harriet Lerner, who supports this idea by saying
that while women take care of the dependency needs of others, it is not presumed of them to
ask to have their needs fulfilled. She also states that when women ask to have their needs
met, they are often seen as demanding and needy, so they rather refrain from doing so
(Women in Therapy, 159). To overcome this obstacle, Murdock suggests that the heroine
should confront the unspoken attitudes that her family has towards female dependency and
inspect how she may have internalized them (55).
The myth of inferiority refers to the belief that compared to masculine qualities,
feminine qualities are viewed as lacking. This is due to society belittling these qualities,
which results in women questioning their value. These beliefs become internalized by
women and produce feelings of self-loathing (Murdock 57). Pearson and Pope further
expand upon this myth in their work The Female Hero. They see the voice of this self-
loathing as either male or female, personifying either an Ogre Tyrant or a Wicked Witch. To
liberate herself from these feelings the heroine has to slay either the Tyrant or the Witch
(66). The ultimate weapon for the heroine is her “sword of truth” (Pearson and Pope 255),
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but as much of women’s truth has been obscured, the heroine must find her own truth and
voice.
Murdock defines the myth of romantic love as a societal belief stating that women
should search for a lover/savior to solve their problems. Men then comply with this belief
by taking care of women, preventing them from taking their heroic journey (60). Murdock
illustrates this myth by stating that in most traditional fairy tales, such as Cinderella, Snow
White or Rapunzel, the heroines are taken out of their state of waiting by a man and
ultimately changed for the better. Murdock uses this observation to prove her theory that
women are raised in a state of expectancy; they are expected to wait for their life to happen
(61).
This myth can be further demostrated using the mythological story of Eros and Psyche.
Eros rescues Psyche from her death, assuring her he will care for her. He only asks her not
to look upon him at night, a request that Psyche violates (She 1-20). By defying his order,
Murdock believes that Psyche challenges the myth of male supremacy (61). Psyche is then
given a set of trials by Aphrodite, Eros’s mother, through which she learns to set boundaries,
say no and experience failure, all while secretly receiving help from Eros (She 44-65). Robert
Johnson suggests that if one is to view this story purely as a woman’s story, Eros functions
as Psyche’s inner male or masculine nature, which has been strengthened by her trials (69).
Psyche has been transformed through the endurance of her trials. She no longer lives
under the spell of romantic love. Through her own hard work, she has become a
goddess. She marries Eros as an equal and achieves true love. (The Heroine’s
Journey, 63)
To confront the myth of romantic love, Murdock suggests that the heroine has to
demythologize her partner and take back the responsibility for her decisions. She must also
liberate herself from believing that she can only achieve fulfilment through a lover (63).
2.1.3 Illusory Boon of Success
When the heroine completes her road of trials, she finds herself experiencing the
success that she has longed for. The heroine has moved beyond the societal expectations,
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and she now feels very sure of herself. She has achieved everything she wanted, such as
power, prestige, and recognition, things her mother could only dream of (Murdock 64-65).
Initially, the heroine feels ecstatic, but as she becomes more successful, she is met with
more demands. These demands take away time and energy, and soon, the heroine might feel
like no work will ever be enough (Murdock 67-68). Murdock argues that at this stage, many
women need the same thing that their fathers wanted and took for granted: someone to take
care of them. They long for someone nurturing and loving, which Murdock believes is the
personification of the feminine, which the heroine gave up in the early stages of her journey.
The heroine, however, is yet to be aware of this need, so she decides to fill this emptiness
with more work (68).
During this stage, the heroine’s relationship with her inner male becomes tyrannical;
it has taken control of her life and drives her from one task to another (Murdock 69). The
cause for this, Murdock argues, is the heroine’s fear of giving up her independence like she
has seen her mother do. In turn, she aims to never depend on anyone, which drives her to
exhaustion (69).
Murdock draws a comparison between this stage of HJ and Betty Friedan’s concept of
feminine mystique (66). In her book The Feminine Mystique (1977), Friedan defines this
term as an image that women were supposed to conform to. This image, which Friedan
observed in 1950s America, is of a woman fulfilled only by marriage, housework, and her
children (37-38). Murdock argues that women who decided to undergo the journey towards
success did so in reaction to their mothers, who conformed to the feminine mystique (66).
This stage of HJ is crucial for the heroine’s development, because it makes her realise
her power and she gains confidence to take the necessary steps towards autonomy. This
confidence and autonomy then allows the heroine to continue in the HJ as she is able to see
the outer success as insufficient and is courageous enough to decline it in favor of finding
inner success (Mudock 72).
2.1.4 Feelings of Spiritual Aridity and Initiation and Descent to the Goddess
After experiencing significant success on the masculine path, the heroine might start
asking herself: “What is next for me?”. While she enjoys her newly mastered skills, financial
21
stability, and the respect she has gained, she is not immune to feelings of uncertainty about
her future (Murdock 76). The heroine feels as though she has betrayed herself and feels out
of sync with herself, which Murdock believes is the first warning she receives before her
body gives her a more explicit message in the form of medical problems (76). The heroine
will not see this problem coming because while rejecting her femininity she has also rejected
her “instinctual body wisdom” (Murdock 27).
It usually takes a significant event or experience for women to awaken to their spiritual
loss, such as divorce and death or departure of a loved one. The loss these women feel is a
yearning for their femininity which they have given up at the start of their journey in favor
of logical thinking and skills in analysis and setting goals (Murdock 76-77).
In Murdock’s opinion, the cases of women who are unable to realize and express their
feelings of loss are much more severe. These women suffer nervous breakdowns and blame
themselves for not being strong enough to hold their own in the male sphere. Murdock states
that to numb these for them unidentifiable feelings, they turn to drugs and alcohol (78). Some
women stay silent about their loss until a medical issue makes them realize “the fact that the
heroic journey did not take into account the limitations of their physical bodies and the
yearning of their spirit.” (Murdock 78).
When the heroine finally says no to the heroic journey and to her inner tyrant, she
experiences an extreme sense of discomfort, as she is afraid of disappointing others by her
choice. Murdock believes that because society values visible hard work and ambition, it sees
self-indulgence and passivity as the only alternative to heroism (87-88). The heroine has to
tune out these outer voices of criticism and move away from her old ways (Murdock 88).
Refusing the heroic journey is the first step in the heroine’s descent to the goddess.
According to Murdock, the descent can be characterízed as a journey to the underworld or
the meeting of the dark goddess (92). The dark goddess is defined as the embodiment of
darker aspects of feminine, such as her sexuality, rage and passion (Dalla-Camina). The
descent involves going deeper to the depth of one’s self to meet these darker aspects of
feminine that have been discarded throughout the heroic quest. To people on the outside, a
woman undergoing the descent seems depressed, inaccessible or preoccupied; she chooses
voluntary isolation that nobody but her can understand (Murdock 92-93).
22
Jungian analyst Sylvia Brinton Perera further explores this period of women’s development
in her book Descent to the Goddess (1981). Perera states that when women undergo this
internal process, they need to “unveil” (59) themselves before the goddess, which means
removing their old masculine beliefs about the world and the identity that she has built for
themselves in accordance with them. It is the time for the woman to focus solely on her body,
her mind, and her emotions (Murdock 94).
2.1.5 Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine
After coming face to face with the feelings she has long suppressed, such as sadness,
anger and confusion, the heroine has now returned from her descent with a severed
connection to the masculine and overfilled with emotions (Murdock 116, 125). After a long
time, she is finally able to be conscious of her loss of feminine and grieve it properly.
Murdock believes it imperative that the heroine does not point blame at others for this loss
and takes full responsibility for examining its causes and starts her healing (127).
She is once again conscious of her body’s needs. One of those needs is the need to be
held and comforted by a mother figure (Murdock 123, 128). This is something that an
American psychologist James Hillman calls “incestuous return to the mother”. According to
Hillman, this return involves longing to be held and “going where the heart really is, where
we actually feel, …, rather than where the heart should be and how we ought to feel.”
(141).
This stage is also a period of longing to regain what was once lost, and that is the
heroine’s relationship to the feminine. As Murdock states, the heroine now wants to develop
the parts of herself that she has neglected and she starts with the creative aspects of feminine.
The heroine’s creative output might be her garden, kitchen, writing or home decorating (116,
132). At first, the heroine might have trouble letting the creative impulse drive her, due to
her need for control, which she has gained while on her heroic quest. Murdock believes that
allowing things to simply happen is essential for women at this stage of HJ as it requires
accepting oneself and being in the moment. She sees “finding about being rather than doing”
as the sacred task of the feminine (133-134).
23
Not only is the heroine reclaiming her creativity and ability to be without doing, but
she is also reclaiming her body. During her heroic quest, she spent most of her time refining
her intellect while ignoring or even rejecting her body (Murdock 121). French philosopher
Camille Froidevaux-Metterie recognizes that there is a link between feminism and women’s
own perceptions of their bodies. Froidevaux-Metterie observes that women who sought to
be equal to men by entering their world see their bodies as obstacles or burdens (69). Many
women have a difficult time living inside their bodies, so they abuse it with food, drugs or
overexercise to get rid of that discomfort. As the heroine starts to be conscious of her body’s
needs and gives it proper nutrition, rest, exercise and healing, she now embodies the
sacredness of feminine (Murdock 121, 123).
2.1.6 Healing the Mother/Daughter Split
The heroine’s next challenge is healing the fractured relationship with her mother.
Murdock believes that this wound includes not only the actual wounded relationship with
the heroine’s mother but also her fractured relationship with the feminine. Jungian
psychoanalyst Janet Dallett explores a similar topic in her book When the Spirits Come, in
which she writes about the psychological process of healing. Dalett believes that when a
person becomes too one-sided (like the heroine during HJ), something in their psyche rises
up and tries to restore the individual’s authenticity. The person is set free of the ordeals of
their life and activates their healing spiritual process (32).
Murdock claims that to reclaim the full power of the feminine, the heroine must also
reclaim the discarded feminine in the form of her mother. If a woman keeps resenting her
mother, she will never be complete and continue to be bound to her (159). If the heroine’s
mother is available, the heroine needs to heal their relationship by renewing and
transforming the relationship to fit her current life. If her mother is dead or is in any other
way inaccessible the heroine is likely to search for her mother in her dreams, art or other
forms of media (Murdock 143-145).
When a woman decides to heal her relationship with the feminine she will likely find
the healing in letting herself experience the ordinary aspects of life, such as housework or
gardening (Murdock 145-146). There is also a strong tendency to reach out to other women,
form a community and undergo female rites of passage. Murdock believes that healing this
24
split is a co-created journey; therefore, to choose the right path, the heroine needs a strong
community (146).
Furthermore, Murdock emphasizes the importance of claiming the dark aspects of
feminine, as well as the positive, as it means that the heroine is “moving beyond the shame
to reclaim all of the feelings she hid from herself” (160). She can only do that by accepting
her mother (and the feminine nature she embodies) for who she is (Murdock 161).
2.1.7 Healing the Inner Masculine Within and Integrating the Masculine with the
Feminine
It is only when the heroine has accepted all aspects of her psyche that she is able to
recognize her wounded masculine nature. Throughout her heroic quest, her inner masculine
has become tyrannical, critical, destructive and overall unrelated to life. This masculine
nature demands perfection and domination, and Murdock believes that to heal this cold
archetypal masculine, the heroine must use her newly mended feminine nature (163).
In order to heal this imbalance in her psyche, the heroine needs to let go of her
attachments to ego, prestige, power and financial gain. Unlike in the earlier stages of HJ, this
act is not a challenge of conquest but more so of acceptance. The heroine needs to inspect
all of the unloved parts of herself that have become oppressive and accept them (Murdock
166). Jungian psychoanalyst Edward Whitmont explores the topic of integrating the
feminine into our psyche to gain wholeness using several myths for demonstration.
Whitmont states that this act requires “strength to sustain awareness and suffering of conflict,
and to be able to surrender oneself to it” (172).
According to Murdock, there comes a time in every woman’s life in when she needs
to decide on a particular choice about being a woman (167). If, at this time, she chooses to
follow the masculine path (like the heroine in HJ), she has two options. The woman can
follow the path of acquiring power and prestige, or she can “internalize the skills learned on
the hero’s journey and integrate these with the wisdom of her feminine nature” (Murdock
167). Murdock calls this integration “the sacred marriage of feminine and masculine” (11).
This sacred marriage can also be seen as a marriage of ego and self. June Singer, an
American psychologist, states that because the goal of the masculine is perfection and the
25
goal of the feminine is completion, a person cannot only choose one of these principles. She
argues that if a person is perfect, they cannot be complete, for they must abandon all their
imperfections. On the other hand, if a person is complete, they cannot be perfect, for the
same reason as above, because they contain both right and wrong, good and evil. Singer sees
it best that a person settles for less than perfection and less than completion (32).
This step concludes the task of the contemporary heroine, as the heroine’s has now
achieved wholeness. The heroine is now fully aware of her true nature and has gained
wisdom while on her journey (176).
26
Practical Part
1 Binti: Synopsis
The Binti trilogy is a Africanfuturistic series of books by Nnedi Okorafor. It consists
of 3 connected novellas: Binti (2015), Binti: Home (2017), Binti: Night Masquerade (2018),
and a short story, Binti: Sacred Fire (2019), which is set between the events of Binti and
Binti: Home. The story follows a young Himba girl who leaves her tribe to study
mathematics at the prestigious intergalactic Oomza University.
The first book in the series depicts Binti’s departure from Earth and her journey to the
university. The vast majority of the students heading to Oomza are Khoush, which in this
world is the majority ethnic group on Earth, and Binti is the only Himba on the ship. While
on her way to the university, Binti makes friends with like-minded students before their
journey is intercepted by an attack of the Meduse, an alien species with which the Khoush
are at war. Binti is the only one to survive this attack and becomes a negotiator between
Meduse and Khoush. After landing at Oomza and negotiating peace between Khoush and
Meduse, Binti decides to stay there, along with Okwu, a Meduse she has befriended. Before
the Meduse leave Oomza, Binti comes to the realization that she has been changed by the
Meduse, noticing her braids have changed into the Meduse tentacles called okuoko, and she
is now part Meduse.
In the short story Binti: Sacred Fire, we follow Binti as she tries to find her place in a
new environment while also coming to terms with her new Meduse part. Throughout the
story, Binti is unsure how to combine her new life at Oomza with her Himba way of life.
One day, she journeys into a desert with Okwu and a few other friends to clear her mind
from her struggles.
In the second book, Binti: Home, after a year at the university, Binti decides to visit
her home to go on a pilgrimage that every young Himba woman undergoes. When Binti
arrives home, her siblings seem resentful towards her for leaving, especially since their father
became unwell after she left. At one point, Binti gets uncontrollably angry at her sister Vera,
scaring her family. Later that night, Binti sees The Night Masquerade, a mystic figure only
the men of her tribe are able to see. At the same time, a group of Desert People, an ethnic
27
group that the Himba view as primitive, have come to take Binti away. It is revealed that her
grandmother is one of them and has come for Binti to initiate her into her tribe. Her
grandmother wants Binti to embrace her heritage as an Enyi Zinariya, which is the actual
name of Desert People. Binti is then initiated into the tribe, but later, when she senses that
Okwu is in trouble, she rushes back home with the help of Mwinyi, an Enyi Zinariya boy
her age.
The third book begins right where the previous one ended; Binti is crossing the desert
to get to her house while struggling with her new self, the Enyi Zinariya initiation activated.
When Binti gets to her house, she finds it in ruins after an attack of the Khoush people,
believing her family to be dead. The Khoush attack triggers a response from the Meduse,
and both Meduse and Khosh armies are ready to fight. Binti persuades Himba elders to call
for a peace meeting between Meduse and Khoush. Just as the peace is agreed upon, shots
are fired, and Binti dies. It is then revealed that Binti’s family survived the attack by hiding
in their cellar. Everyone mourns Binti, and Okwu and Mwinyi decide to take her body to
space, which was one of her wishes. They travel on a living shrimp-like ship, which manages
to connect to Binti and bring her to life. Binti is now part Himba, Meduse and Enyi Zinariya,
as well as sharing the ship‘s DNA and finally finds the balance between all parts of herself.
They all travel to Oomza Uni, where Binti and Okwu continue their studies.
28
2 Binti’s first Heroine’s Journey
To be able to view Binti’s story as a story of the relationship between masculine and
feminine, I need to define what these two aspects of human nature stand for within the
context of Binti’s story. Murdock’s feminine principle is defined as the familiar that the
heroine feels trapped by and the masculine priciple is seen as the inner hunger for prestige
and success. These two principles are viewed as polarities right until the end of HJ when the
heroine joins them together. In a similar way, Binti’s story can also be seen as a story of two
polarities as a large portion of the story deals with the clash of tradition and objective
knowledge. To maintain coherence and connection to the theoretical part, in the text I will
refer to Binti’s traditional background as the feminine and to her strive for objective
knowledge as the masculine.
To properly consider Binti’s story from the perspective of the Heroine’s Journey, I
have split it into two parts. This separation is necessary as Binti’s initial attempt at the final
step of HJ integration of masculine and feminine was unsuccessful. This was due to Binti’s
insuffient identifiaction with the masculine aspect which is further explained in the following
chapters. Nevertheless, Binti then undergoes the the initial stages of HJ for the second time,
leaving her home and exploring a new aspect of her identity she previously neglected.
2.1 Leaving her homeland
Separation, in general, is one of the trilogy’s central themes. This statement is further
supported by the author, Nnedi Okorafor. In her lecture at The Center for Values in
Medicine, Science and Technology of The University of Texas, she stated that one of the
questions she was most concerned with in Binti was: “Can you ever go home once you leave
it?” (“Okorafor: At Home”). The phenomenon of leaving home corresponds with the first
step of HJ when the heroine rejects and separates from her mother and her feminine nature
3
.
There are many indicators of this in the initial pages of the first book. When the reader
is first introduced to Binti, she is on her way to board a spaceship that will take her to the
3
See chapter 2.1.1 of the theoretical part.
29
prestigious university Oomza Uni. Binti leaves for the university without the approval of her
family; she is clearly conflicted about this decision and feels as though she is “defying the
most traditional part of herself for the first time in her life” (Okorafor 1). By attending
the university, Binti wished to feed her curiosity, which is something she and her father had
disagreed on. Her father saw her curiosity as an obstacle on her way to be a master
harmonizer
4
, but Binti believed she could only be that “if [she] were curious enough to seek
greatness.” (Okorafor 32).
Binti’s search for “greatness” and her strive for knowledge heavily correspond with
the principle of masculine in HJ. Binti defied the feminine in form of the tradional knowledge
rooted in her culture by wishing for an objective knowledge (masculine), which she believed
she could only receive at Oomza.
The cause for Binti’s complicated feelings about leaving for Oomza Uni is partially
due to her being Himba, an ethnicity that, in Okorafor’s vision of the future Africa, is one of
three ethnic groups on Earth we are introduced to in the story. The Himba people are very
put in their ways and never travel outside of their tribe. They cover their bodies in “otjize”,
a paste made out of the red clay of their land, which further emphasizes their connection to
Earth. By attending Oomza Uni, Binti becomes the first of her people to do so, ultimately
defying her customs and culture. Binti does not only leave her family but also goes against
her ethnic traditions, which proves that, just like in HJ, Binti’s separation happens in two
degrees: separation from her family and separation from her culture.
The most apparent difference between Binti’s separation and the heroine’s separation
from the feminine is demonstrated by Binti continuing to uphold her people’s customs.
Unlike the stereotypical heroine of HJ, Binti does not completely discard her customs,
something we can see in her continuing to use otjize on her skin and hair, and some instances
show she finds comfort in it during hardships, especially during her road of trials.
5
One such
instance occurs when Binti is at the launch port, getting ready to board the spaceship for
Oomza. She gets overwhelmed by a travel agent telling her her people are proud of her for
4
In Binti, a harmonizer is an individual who can manipulate mathematical currents in order to communicate
with animals, alien species or technology and create advanced communication devices known as astrolabes.
5
For more examples, see Chapter 2.2. of the practical part.
30
being accepted to Oomza, not knowing it is the opposite of what the Himba think: „I quickly
made my way through the many people in the terminal, too aware of their closeness. I
considered finding a lavatory and applying more otjize to my skin and tying my hair back,
but instead I kept moving“ (Okorafor 5).
When on the ship headed for Oomza, Binti finds that she has much in common with
other students, such as their passion for mathematics and experimenting, and is able to make
friends quickly. Similarly to the heroine in HJ, this is when Binti finds like-minded allies,
which can be proven by her saying: “The people on the ship weren’t Himba, but I soon
understood they were still my people. I stood out as a Himba, but the commonalities shined
brighter.” (Okorafor 11).
While onboard the ship, Binti is fully immersed in her new life, meeting up with her
friends to practice math equations and going to lectures. This results in further identification
with this way of life. Binti herself acknowledges this fact, realizing she is happier on board
of the ship than she has ever been at home.
2.2 Attack of the Meduse and negotiations
Binti’s happiness on the ship is ultimately stopped by the attack of the Meduse. This
attack is the first major obstacle on Binti’s HJ, signalling the start of her “road of trials”
6
.
The Meduse heavily relate to what Murdock (51) calls “dragons”, outer world obstacles that
intercept the heroine’s path to success. The Meduse are not only set upon killing Binti; they
undermine her capability and see her and her people as inferior. After she becomes the only
survivor aboard the ship, she is left entirely at their mercy. Binti acknowledges this by
saying, “… the path of my fate was no longer mine.” (Okorafor 29).
By this stage of HJ, Binti is supposed to be fully on the masculine path. However, her
reaction to the attack can be interpreted as both of masculine and feminine nature. Following
the attack, Binti hides in her room, thinking and dreaming of her old life and even
questioning her decision to leave Earth. Binti essentially turns into herself, which, as we
have come to learn in the previous chapters, coincides with the Himba way of life, as they
are very inward-looking people. After three days of solitude, Binti is approached by the
6
See chapter 2.1.2 of the theoretical part.
31
Meduse, and it is then that she decides to take her fate into her own hands. She decides to
negotiate with them and hear their point of view, thus leaning more into the masculine.
During this trying period aboard the ship, it is made even more apparent that while
Binti has consciously separated herself from her culture and family, she continues to use her
traditions and thoughts of family as a source of solace. Such as repeating the line “I am Binti
Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka of Namib” (Okorafor 16), which her father used to tell her
to lure her out of her meditative state. Then, when facing the Meduse, she is once again
comforted by the otjize in her hair, feeling the good luck and strength of her people.
An important part of the road of trials is gathering like-minded allies. Binti’s road of
trials seems to follow the same principle, as in this part of the story, we are introduced to
Okwu, one of the Meduse that attacked the ship. In later chapters, Okwu becomes Binti’s
constant companion and a trusted friend. While aboard the ship, Binti comes to the
realisation that while they are enemies, they share many similarities. She realises that, just
like her, he is young, curious and eager to prove himself to his elders. Okwu is also the one
to help her negotiate with the Meduse chief and essentialy vouches for her. This signals the
start of a relationship that will later become one of the defining relationships of the whole
story.
Binti arrives at Oomza university as a representative of the Meduse. However, in the
eyes of the Meduse, she is not a fit representative as she does not fully understand them, and
the Khoush would not believe she was not their prisoner. So Binti was changed by a sting
from one of the Meduse and became part Meduse. Her hair, which used to be covered in
otjize and braided in a pattern reflecting her family’s culture and history, has now
transformed into the Meduse tentacles okuoko. Because of this transformation, Binti was
stripped of a part of her heritage, involuntary moving further away from the feminine and
closer to the masculine. This circumstance makes it impossible for Binti to ever return to her
people unchanged, making the result of her heroine’s journey irreversible.
Binti’s success in negotiating the temporary agreement between Oomza and Meduse
indicates to her the success of the masculine path. Binti herself acknowledges this as a
success, going as far as to call the moment historic. However, she also looks to the crowd
around her, searching for a familiar face. In the same way that the heroine, at this stage of
32
HJ, longs for the feminine to comfort her, Binti wishes for her family to share her excitement.
While Binti’s success serves as a validation for her decision to leave, she inevitably finds
herself alone, without anyone to celebrate her success with. This subconscious loneliness
can be interpreted as a sign of the insufficiency of Binti’s success.
2.3 Life at Oomza Uni
During the time which passes between her successful negotiations and her return
home, Binti undergoes many changes which may be identified as numerous stages of HJ.
First, she starts getting used to her new life at Oomza. However, she is unable to feel fulfilled
by her studies and new life as she begins to feel out of sync with herself, which Murdock
calls feelings of spiritual aridity. The clash of Binti’s new and old ways of life causes an
emotional turmoil within her, which Binti is forced to come face to face with, something that
hints at Murdock’s descent to the goddess. As a result of that, Binti finally decides to come
home in order to reconnect with herself and her roots. In this chapter, I will give more insight
into how each of the aforementioned stages of HJ manifests in Binti’s story.
After her success at negotiating peace between Meduse and the Khoush of Oomza Uni,
Binti finally starts her studies. During her time there, Binti continues to connect with the
masculine, at times mentioning the vast differences between her life at Oomza and her old
life. One of these differences is the fact that Binti starts seeing a therapist to help her with
her trauma from the Meduse attack. This makes Binti quite uncomfortable as “in [her]
family, one does not go to a stranger and spill her deepest thoughts and fears. You go to a
family member and if not, you hold it in, deep, close to the heart, even if it tore you up
inside” (Okorafor 113). However, Binti is also aware of the fact that her sessions with the
therapist help her and continues with them despite the initial discomfort. This decision to
follow through with something unnatural to her shows Binti’s connection to the masculine,
as she is able to think objectively about her mental well-being without the fear of the Himba
stigma that follows it.
An important symbol for the identification with masculine stage of HJ in this part of
Binti’s story is otjize. Among other things, otjize symbolizes Himba’s connection to Earth,
so by being covered with it, Binti still feels strongly connected to Earth and her family’s
traditions. When Binti arrives at Oomza, her Earth-made otjize can only last her so long, so,
33
forced by the circumstances, Binti has to make new otjize out of a clay at Oomza. In a certain
way, this can be interpreted as Binti trying to combine the two worlds together and trying to
prove that she can keep her customs even in a place that is not used to her culture, as Binti
is the first of her kind to be there. This goes directly against Murdock’s take on HJ, in which
the heroine has to assimilate into the culture of masculine in order to succeed.
Even after undergoing her road of trials in the form of surviving the Meduse massacre
aboard the ship, Binti faces another obstacle in the form of prejudice from fellow students.
These students resent her for bringing a Meduse to the university and view her as a traitor to
humankind. These students, who attack and insult her, make Binti’s life significantly harder,
much like the ill-wishing co-workers or bosses Murdock (51) uses as examples in her
Heroine’s Journey. These students’ insults often stem from Binti being Himba, calling her a
“typical silly foolish Himba girl” (Okorafor 78) and emphasizing that Himba translates to
„beggar“ in their language. The students highlighting their presumed superiority may seem
as them trying to impose the myth of inferiority on Binti, which is one of the key obstacles
in Murdock’s road of trials.
7
However, Binti does not respond to that and is sure of her place
at Oomza.
Another stage of HJ that Binti goes through is experiencing feelings of aridity. Unlike
in HJ, where this stage happens right before the heroine’s descent, Binti seems to experience
these feelings while simultaneously going through other stages. For example, during her
descent, Binti not only acknowledges how lonely she felt at home but also how lonely she
feels at Oomza Uni, being the only Himba there. However, while she acknowledges these
feelings, at this stage, Binti is still secure that her decision to leave for Oomza was right,
saying “[She] was a ghost at Oomza Uni. Displaced but still in the place [she] needed to be.
The place [she] wanted to be.” (Okorafor 61).
While at Oomza Uni, Binti also makes her “descent to the goddess”. This stage of HJ
manifests in one of Binti’s sessions with her professor. Aside from her studies, Binti also
spends part of her time working with one of her professors studying her edan, an ancient
electronic device she once found in the desert as a young girl. So far, up to this particular
7
See Chapter 2.1.2 of the theoretical part.
34
session, all of Binti’s attempts to open the edan were failures. During this session, Binti
enters her meditative state and is told to think of her home, and so, after spending months at
Oomza, Binti is now forced to come face to face with her inner life and suppressed feelings.
During the descent, Binti finally acknowledges the loneliness she has felt at home for
being different: “…, my classmates laughing about how they didn’t understand any of the
math problems. But I understood it all and I just…sometimes I felt lonely.” (Okorafor 73).
If we were to view this loneliness as a side effect of Binti’s traditional background, this part
aligns with the heroine in HJ coming face to face with the uglier aspects of feminine. As
well as memories of home, Binti was also confronted with the images of the horrors she
experienced on the ship. And for the first time since the attack, Binti has given in to the
despair and anger she has kept hidden. This is similar to the heroine in HJ stripping herself
before the goddess and facing her deepest emotions. After coming out of her descent, Binti
reacted with excessive anger, trying to smash her edan so much that she hurt herself and her
hand was bleeding.
This outburst shows that Binti is overcome with feelings she has long ignored. These
feelings seem to be mostly anger. She feels angry towards the Meduse for changing her, but
she might also feel angry towards herself. While she does not consciously acknowledge it,
in certain parts, it may seem that Binti is angry at herself for leaving her home, betraying her
family and even for being different from them, as it had all led her to that traumatic
experience aboard the ship. This also seems to be the moment when Binti realizes that while
her journey to Oomza has brought her the access to objective knowledge she wished for and
which she lacked at home, it has also brought her an unnecessary pain, which she would not
have experienced, had she not decided to leave.
At a certain point, Binti decides to venture into the desert on the Oomza planet. This
decision can be interpreted as a direct response to her descent. As the heroine is now
overcome with the emotions she has long suppressed, she decides to seek the feminine to
comfort her, thus entering the stage that Murdock calls “urgent yearning to reconnect with
the feminine”. In Binti’s case, she longs for a sense of home, so she seeks to feel closer to
her family by going to the desert. It may also be seen as a way to return to her old self, a
version of Binti unburdened by her conflicting feelings and her trauma.
35
As she cannot escape her feelings after making her descent, Binti is disturbed by her
anger, especially since excessive anger is considered unclean in her culture. To cleanse
herself, Binti feels the need to return home and go on her pilgrimage, which women of her
tribe undergo as a rite of passage. However, later in the story, Binti learns that anger is part
of her new Meduse DNA. Binti’s decision to quickly categorize her feelings as unclean
without properly analyzing the reason behind them and resorting to getting rid of them by
coming home shows that at this stage of her journey, she is not ready to integrate her old life
with the new. Instead, she keeps thinking of them as polar opposites and cannot think of
them co-existing together.
2.4 Homecoming
Binti’s journey back home and her reunion with her family becomes a turning point in
her story, as in this part of the story, she realises the impact that her leaving had - not only
on her family, but also on her community. While at Oomza, Binti seemed to live in a bubble
in which she was primarily concerned with how her journey affected her individually, which
is typical behaviour for the heroine during this stage of HJ. Now, upon arriving back on
Earth, she is confronted with how her departure affected her home. Binti comes back seeking
the comfort of the same home and community she left, but at first, she does not realize that
it is impossible. What follows is a clash between Binti’s rather naïve, self-centered view and
the reality of her home, which is now different in its approach to Binti. This clash then
culminates in an argument between Binti and her siblings. In Murdock’s HJ, there is no
mention of this phenomenon. When the heroine tries to reconnect with the feminine, she
returns to find it unchanged, but this is not the case with Binti. This situation offers an
interesting view of this stage of Murdock’s HJ and shows the complexities of the story.
When Binti leaves the ship upon her arrival to greet her family, she gets swept up in
the euphoria of their reunion. This excitement lasts until Okwu, her Meduse friend, also exits
the ship, and everyone present is made uncomfortable by its presence. It seems as if until
Okwu’s appearance, Binti and her family could pretend nothing has changed between them,
and now, with him there as a physical proof of Binti’s journey and transformation, they are
confronted with the truth. This moment further enhances the dichotomy within Binti’s
identity; she is a Himba girl who loves her family, history and customs, but she is also a girl
36
who left in pursuit of knowledge she cannot acquire on Earth and now shares an alien DNA.
It is possible to say that this one quick moment of paralysis when Binti turns away from her
shocked family to Okwu, is the first time Binti realizes the vast difference between the two
versions of herself and how difficult it is to unite them.
When Binti finally reunites with her community at her family’s house The Root, its
name further proving her family’s earth-bound nature, there is an underlying tension in her
interactions with her family members and friends. She meets her friends, who are all now
betrothed, which Binti seems bothered by, especially since they do not ask her if she came
back to get betrothed as well. This shows that Binti’s community assumes she has moved so
far away from their culture and is blind to her attempt at reconnecting with them.
While Binti returned home to see her family and go on her pilgrimage, she still intends
to return to Oomza. Unlike the heroine in HJ, who wishes to fully reconnect with the
feminine, Binti seems to only seek a partial reconnection. Binti and her family have a
different view of her homecoming. With Binti’s sister Omaihi saying, “You’ll always be
alone if you don’t stop this and come home” (Okorafor 144), it is clear that Binti’s family
wishes for her to reunite with the feminine completely in a similar way that Murdock’s
heroine does. This difference in the approach to their reunion triggers a confrontation
between Binti and her older sister Vera.
There is a contrast to be seen between Binti and Vera. Vera is a typical Himba woman
as she stays close to her family, married a Himba man and had children. She is also stable,
rooted and, without fault, upholds all Himba customs and rules, making her the embodiment
of the feminine. It is then no surprise that she is the one most outspoken about Binti’s
decision to leave and confronts her with it during their reunion, symbolizing the feminine
rejecting Binti’s attempt at reconnection. Unlike Vera, who seems rooted in the feminine
principle, Binti is unsure of her place in the world because she is going down a path no one
before her has. At this time, she exists in a liminal space in between the masculine and
feminine and is failing to unite those two principles because the feminine, in the form of
Vera and the Himba community, is rejecting her new identity.
Because of their stark contrast, their argument can be viewed as the clash of feminine
and masculine, Vera symbolizing the feminine and Binti leaning more into the masculine as
37
she tries to make her sister understand what good her masculine decisions have done for her.
This is the first time in the story that we see a physical representation of the clash between
masculine and feminine. So far up to this point, it has only occurred as an identity conflict
within Binti’s mind. An example of this is Vera saying to Binti, “You don’t even sound the
same. You’re polluted. Almost eighteen years. What man will marry you? What kind of
children will you have now?” (Okorafor 144). All of these are thoughts Binti already
struggled with on the inside, but now she is confronted with them by someone else. This
causes Binti to lean more into the masculine and defend her actions.
At one point during the confrontation with her siblings, Binti reaches into her pocket
and grasps her edan for comfort. This subconscious need to touch her edan, which for Binti
represents the masculine, symbolizes Binti’s use of the masculine as a source of solace. This
can be seen as a parallel to Binti finding comfort in otjize when she was at Oomza. In this
regard, Binti’s journey seems more complex than that of Murdock’s stereotypical heroine.
When the heroine goes on her masculine journey, she completely discards the feminine and
does the same with the masculine when she decides to reconnect with the feminine.
However, in hard situations that stem from the masculine or feminine, Binti seems to always
reach for the other aspect for comfort.
Even before the conflict, it is clear that Binti no longer fits in with her community.
When Binti goes on to change after her arrival, she chooses to wear a light blue dress she
bought at Oomza. Her subconscious decision to wear a foreign dress, which is of a highly
unusual color for a Himba, to meet her very traditional community shows Binti’s naïve
approach to this reunion, and she quickly realizes her mistake as she immediately stands out
and receives pointed looks. The fact that Binti is too different from her community makes it
harder for her to properly reconnect with her roots. In The Heroine’s Journey, Murdock
emphasizes the importance of having a strong community when the heroine tries to heal her
relationship with the feminine. In Binti’s case, her community is a part of the feminine
principle that blames her for leaving and then coming back different. This is something that
Murdock’s HJ does not take into account.
38
3 Binti’s second Heroine’s Journey
Binti’s attempt at reconnecting with the feminine failed partially because of the clash
of feminine and masculine but also because Binti has not discovered all parts of her identity,
thus cannot successfully unite the masculine and feminine aspect of her nature. That night
after the argument, the Desert People, who in the eyes of the Himba are primitive folk living
in the desert, come to take Binti away. Binti’s grandmother is one of them and she believes
it is her time to be initiated into their tribe. When it came to her view of the Desert People,
she still followed the same opinion that the Himba had about them. So, while Binti was on
a quest for objective knowledge, she failed in viewing the Desert People through those
objective lenses. Binti is now again on a quest exploring a new aspect of herself she
previously ignored, taking another step towards objectivity and thus repeating the first steps
of HJ: separation from the feminine and further identification with the masculine.
3.1 Exploring the Enyi Zinariya way of life
On her journey through the desert with the Desert People, Binti learns about their
history and, more importantly, about the way they communicate through the zinariya
8
, which
she before viewed as crazy behaviour because when they communicate, they also move their
hands uncontrollably. She realizes her mistake, saying, “I’ve been planets away and learned
about and met people from other worlds. It’s wrong that I don’t even know of my own…my
own people.” (Okorafor 182). Binti acknowledging her prejudice and claiming the Enyi
Zinariya as her people is the first step on her way to exploring all parts of herself and uniting
them, thus completing her HJ. Moreover, her shortsightedness regarding the Desert People
shows Binti as complex and imperfect heroine.
Binti’s grandmother is a key character in this part of the story as she acts as her guide
into the customs of the Enyi Zinariya and presents her for her initiation. She is proud of Binti
for leaving behind the Himba’s inward thinking and deciding to explore the world,
essentially encouraging her new relationship with the masculine. By helping Binti get
accustomed to the Enyi Zinariya, she acts as a guide to the masculine principle, helping Binti
8
The zinariya are hereditary alien nanoorganisms that are embeded in the brains of Enyi Zinariya that allow
them to communicate with each other.
39
in her quest for objective knowledge. The role that Binti’s grandmother takes is different
from the role that the heroine’s grandmother assumes in Murdock’s HJ, which is as a “guide
to the mysterious realms of feminine” (Murdock 147).
The turning point of this part is Binti’s initiation, during which she unlocks the
zinariya, a technology that allows the Enyi Zinariya to connect to each other and to their
collective memory. At this moment, Binti firmly believes that this is the final step that
ensures she can never come back to her family. In chapter 2.2 of the practical part it is
showcased how Binti’s Meduse transformation made it impossible for her to come home
unchanged by her journey. Unlike the Meduse transformation, Binti undergoes the initiation
willingly, showing acceptance of her destiny and of the sacrifices she has to make on her
journey towards the masculine.
Apart from otjize, Binti also stayed connected to her family through her astrolabe
9
.
Her family was famous for crafting astrolabes and “her family’s fortune and identity were
based on the importance of astrolabes to the world.” (Okorafor 233). However, when Binti
is on her way back to Osemba, she realizes her astrolabe is broken. This symbolizes further
separation from the feminine, as she has now, with the loss of her astrolabe, lost her previous
identity and by breaking the astrolabe she dishonors her family.
Throughout the story, Binti’s hair carries a meaning on its own. Before arriving at
Oomza, while she is not fully confident in her decision to leave, she uses her locks to hide.
When Binti arrived at Oomza, this significant change was marked by her hair being
transformed into the Meduse okuoko. Now, after her initiation and her way to Osemba, her
hair is an “otjize-rolled okuoko, blue tentacles layered with sweet smelling red clay and now
sand” (Okorafor 214). Her hair, in this moment, reflects all parts of her identity, with the
otjize symbolizing her Himba culture and okuoko and sand symbolizing her Meduse and
Enyi Zinarya DNA, respectively.
9
In Binti, astrolabe is a communication device, which also holds the owner‘s entire past and family history.
40
3.2 Loss of family and fighting for peace
This chapter concerns the events of the final book in the trilogy, in which Binti fights
to save her land from becoming the playground for the Meduse-Khoush war. Binti feels
responsible for being the catalyst for this conflict by bringing Okwu to Earth. This shows
that while Binti’s masculine quest brought satisfaction for herself, it has brought upon
destruction to her surroundings. The masculine in this story becomes tyrannical and
destructive, similarly to the masculine in HJ
10
. Binti believed her quest would bring
harmony, but instead, she has put herself and the people she loves in danger. It is then upon
her to solve this situation.
Binti’s approach to rectifying the situation is asking the Himba council for help.
However, it is revealed that the Himba council no longer considers her one of their people
and ultimately decides not to help her. This acts as another example of the feminine rejecting
Binti right when she reaches for it. In previous examples of this phenomenon
11
, the rejection
made Binti lean more towards masculine. Now, Binti seems to accept the rejection of her
elders and decides to rely solely on herself. In the past, Binti has tried to reconnect with the
feminine by reconnecting with her Himba community. Now, instead of reconnecting with
the physical representation of the feminine in the form of the Himba community, Binti
reaches for the spiritual aspect of the feminine within her. This can be seen in her enacting
a Himba ritual she previously believed could be used only by the Himba council. The
difference in her approach to the rejection results from Binti’s assuredness in her masculine
quest. After her Enyi Zinariya initiation, her quest for objective knowledge seems to be
complete and Binti is sure she made the right decisions. Thus, she has no need to defend her
actions before anyone.
When healing the wounded tyrannical masculine, Murdock believes the heroine needs
to use the feminine to do so, and Binti follows the same principle. She uses what appears to
be a powerful sacred Himba ritual called deep culture. Binti is able to do so because she
finally mended her relationship with the feminine.
10
See chapter 2.1.7 of the theoretical part.
11
See chapter 2.4 of the practical part.
41
It is only after her death that her community and family accept Binti’s attempt at
reconnection. When Mwinyi wants to take Binti’s body to the rings of Saturn, which Binti
wished to see, her mother lets them take the body. It is not only her mother that accepts Binti,
but also many other people of her community. The women prepare her body for the journey
in the Himba way, and the men of the Himba council perform their typical burial rituals. By
fighting to save their land from war, Binti proved her loyalty in the eyes of the Himba, and
they finally accept her as one of their own again. This completes Binti’s attempt at
reconnection in both spiritual and physical sense.
42
4 Final integration of the old way of life with the new
As established in the theoretical part, one of the most notable differences between
Murdock’s HJ and the typical heroic journey is the final step, during which the heroine
connects what she has learned on her masculine quest with the feminine and starts to lead a
balanced life. When Binti starts her quest for objective knowledge, she does so with the
intention of doing the same as Murdock’s heroine. Binti is not “leaving [her] family, [her]
people, or [her] culture. [She] wants to add to it all.”(Okorafor 263). This makes her quest
more complicated than that of Murdock’s heroine, who only realizes the possibility later on
her journey.
The first hints at the integration of feminine and masculine are shown during Binti’s
time at Oomza. At Oomza, Binti tries to keep her customs even if they are inconvenient for
her current circumstances, such as having to find a way to make otjize at Oomza. Regarding
this, the most important moment comes after Binti journeys to the Oomza desert. Binti
realizes that to live a balanced life at Oomza, she needs to change her approach to the
feminine. However, the integration was only possible at Oomza, a place of vast diversity.
When Binti comes home and tries to apply the same mentality, she is met with failure.
Therefore, she needs to find a different way to unite the feminine and masculine.
Binti’s inability to unite the two aspects at Earth stems from her viewing herself as a
failure. Throughout the entire story, she struggles with these feelings, thinking she did not
succeed her father as the family’s harmonizer. The first step towards the union is for Binti
to accept that she was not a failure, and that by exploring the world beyond the Himba
teachings, she became a true harmonizer. She can create harmony because she is now able
to understand all perspectives, not just the perspective of a Himba.
The first signs of the final integration come during the Meduse-Khoush peace
meetings. As Binti talks to the Khoush king, she simultaneously speaks to the Meduse chief
through her okuoko and communicates with the Enyi Zinariya through the zinariya. In this
moment, she unites all aspects of her identity in order to save her land and the feminine
aspect it symbolizes. Binti’s bravery and determination to make peace and harmony inspire
both Himba and Enyi Zinariya, and their response to her death completes the integration.
When the Himba women prepare Binti’s body for transport, they dress her in a red-orange
43
dress with a light blue sash. The colors seem to be chosen deliberately; the red-orange color
symbolizes otjize, and the light blue is chosen either in reference to the color of Binti’s
okuoko or the light blue dress she wore when she met her family. This shows that as well as
accepting Binti back into their community, the Himba also accept Binti the way she is and
support her attempt at uniting feminine and masculine.
Murdock often emphasizes that a heroine undergoing HJ becomes a role model for
people around her, and her journey heavily affects her community (59). In Binti’s case, the
culmination of her journey results in mending the relationship between Himba and Enyi
Zinariya, who come to help the Himba after the destruction of their village. Her journey
inspired two tribes, each representing one of the main polarizing aspects of the story, to come
together in time of need. This makes Binti’s aim to unite the feminine and masculine aspects
both within her and in her surroundings successful.
44
Conclusion
The aim of this bachelor thesis was to find parallels between Maureen Murdock’s
model The Heroine’s Journey (1990) and a contemporary Africanfuturistic trilogy Binti
(2015-2019) by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor and also prove the model’s
relevance for contemporary YA literature. In the theoretical part of this thesis, I established
the main themes of each stage of Murdock’s HJ and described the background of both
Maureen Mureock and the author of Binti Nnedi Okorafor. A thorough undestanding of
Murdock’s model was crucial for proper analysis and served as guide for the practical part.
Both Binti and The Heroine’s Journey are primarily concerned with leaving the
familiar in search of something more, be that prestige, financial gain or, in the case of Binti,
objective knowledge. In the practical part, I looked at different parts of Binti’s story in
chronological order and demonstrated which stages of HJ appear in each of them and how
they are realized. Murdock herself considered the possibility of following the stages in
different order from hers and skipping or repeating some of them (4). I found that to be true
for Binti’s journey as well.
What this thesis proves is that the fundamental aspects of HJ are indeed present in the
Binti trilogy, such as main themes of individual stages of HJ, the clash of two polarizing
aspects and the eventual union of these aspects. The feminine and masculine aspects of HJ
are early on established as tradition and objective knowledge respectively and a part of the
analysis is focused on their representation in the story and how they overall affect Binti’s
life. However, there are many deviations from the stereotypical heroine’s journey that make
Binti’s journey more complex and less predictable.
Throughout the analysis it became apparent that while Binti’s story follows the main
stages of HJ it manages to depart from them in both minor and major ways, which unearths
challenges for the heroine that the author of The Heroine’s Journey model failed to take into
account. One such major difference that significantly impacts Binti’s journey is the
possibility of being rejected when seeking a reunion with the feminine aspect. When Binti
returns to her village after a year at Oomza, she is confronted by her sister and blamed for
the state of her family and ultimately rejected by her family. Another difference is the fact
45
that Binti never abandons the feminine, unlike the heroine in HJ. Its deviations from
Murdock’s framework make the story unique and the character of Binti a complex heroine.
Murdock’s model is clear in its separation of feminine and masculine in the early
stages of HJ, but Binti never truly lets go of any of the two aspects, and her identification
with the two aspects seems fluid. Such can be seen in her response to the Meduse attack
which can be interpreted as both of masculine and feminine nature. These moments made
my analysis more difficult because to align Binti’s story with Murdock’s framework I had
to limit my analysis to focus only on the two aspects and establish clear lines between them
that more often than not were not set in place. This meant that I tried to place a complex and
unconventional heroine into a two-dimensional model that did not take into account the
possibility of the liminal area between feminine and masculine throughout the entire journey,
not only at the end of the journey.
Thanks to analyzing Binti through the lense of Murdock’s HJ, I shifted my focus to
the development of the main protagonist Binti and, most importantly, to the development of
her identity juxtaposed with the identity development of Murdock’s heroine. From that view,
it became clear that another prevalent theme of the story is establishing identity in a rigid
background of the protagonist’s home. This particular theme is quite common in
contemporary literature and especially frequent in contemporary young adult literature, as
most of these focus on the coming-of-age of the protagonist.
My hypothesis is then proven to be only partialy true. The themes of The Heroine’s
Journey, such as identity development, trying to fit in in a world that rejects us or separating
from family, are also some of the main themes in Binti and overall common in contemporary
YA literature. It is the form and its restrictiveness which makes the framework difficult to
apply to Binti’s story. The dichotomy of identity according to Murdock feels outdated and
insular when compared to a modern story such as Binti and makes the framework overall
insufficient for portraying the journey of modern literary heroines.
46
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Vyjádření k využití nástrojů umělé intelligence
Nástroje umělé intelligence byly použity pouze za účelem identifikace gramatických
či syntaktických chyb.
