MYTHS IN CRISIS The Crisis of Mythic Structures

Myths in Crisis:
The Crisis of Myth
Edited by
José Manuel Losada
and Antonella Lipscomb

Myths in Crisis: The Crisis of Myth
Edited by José Manuel Losada and Antonella Lipscomb
This book first published 2015
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2015 by José Manuel Losada, Antonella Lipscomb
and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright
owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-7814-6
ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7814-2

Chapter One
The Structure of Myth and
Typology of its Crisis
José Manuel Losada1
Saussure affirmed that language is not substance, but form, a principle
of classification and a system of signs wherein only the union of sense and
acoustic image is essential, to the point that some languages differ from oth-
ers on the principle of difference between their respective signs.
Hjelmslev agreed with the general premises of Saussure’s theory, but
he maintained that linguistic units cannot be reduced to the aspect of dif-
ferentiation, the phonic and semantic context that they involve. For them
to be projected into reality, they need to exist independently of that reality.
Consequently, he stated that linguistic units are defined by the connections
that bind them to other units of language. For Hjelmslev, the sign must
give precedence to the phoneme and the seme, and definition to connec-
tion; likewise, it is necessary to define linguistic elements according to their
combinatorial relations.
I do not intend to enter into semiology or glossematics. I am taking these
analyses of the Swiss and Danish linguists to demonstrate the fundamen-
tal units that structure myth. Hjelmslev sought to determine the specificity
of languages from the commutative study of units smaller than the sign.
Similarly, I posit that it is possible to identify the structural specificity of
myths from the combinatorial relations that their fundamental elements es-
tablish among themselves. What interests me is accentuating the elements
that allow us to detect a myth and distinguish it from others.
These constant elements, which criticism calls invariants or “large consti-
tutive units or mythemes” (“grosses unités constitutives ou mythèmes”, Lévi-
Strauss, 241), can appear in one or various myths, but—just as in linguis-
tics—must maintain among themselves certain connections or laws of func-
tioning, i.e., they must establish a set of combinatorial relations. This explains
the plurality of manifestations of a single myth, which remains identifiable as
such as long as the combinations that shape it are not substantially modified.
If these are essentially altered, the myth is noticeably disturbed: sometimes
distorted, and sometimes irreconcilable; in all cases, suffers a crisis.
1 This article has been translated by Veronica Mayer, Ph.D. candidate in Spanish at
Yale University, New Haven, CT.

4 Chapter One
1. The Structure of Myth
1.1. Theme and Mytheme
One of the common mistakes among young (and not-so-young) scholars
of myth-criticism is to confuse theme and mytheme. It is not enough that
a theme occurs frequently in a myth for it to be identified as a mytheme. A
mytheme is a theme whose transcendent or supernatural dimension allows
it to interact with other mythemes to form a myth.
Another important aside: we must distinguish between storyline and
mytheme. I do not mean to claim that the narrative occurrences of a text
do not constitute a myth, but it is useful to distinguish between the events
of a myth’s story and its mythic structure. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (c. 430
bc) contains narrative episodes that are nonessential to the plotline: the
plague that strikes the city, the city of Thebes itself, Tiresias’s revelation
to Oedipus, the confrontation between Creon and the king, or Jocasta’s ob-
structing the investigation of Laius’ death. By contrast, there are the “fun-
damental episodes”: the abandonment of the baby on Mount Cithaeron, the
circumstances of the patricide, the victory over the Sphinx, the incest, and
the punishment (Astier, 20). These episodes could be summarized in the
following themes: orphanhood, patricide, riddle, incest, and punishment.
When removed from their accidental connections, these themes expose the
authentic skeleton of the myth. We must not forget, though, that themes
are merely unvarying elements when they possess a mythic, transcendent
dimension. In the myth of Oedipus, for instance, patricide and incest are
inevitable because they determine the hero’s fate.
Of course, these unvarying elements are adapted in every era. Thus, for
instance, orphanhood is privileged in Gide’s Œdipe (1931), as the author is
particularly inclined to understand freedom as undoing the obligations of
the past (Morales Peco, 296-98). From his first speech, the protagonist is
shown to be proud of his uprooting:
Je suis Œdipe. Quarante ans d’âge, vingt ans de règne. Par la force de mes
poignets, j’atteins au sommet du bonheur. Enfant perdu, trouvé, sans état
civil, sans papiers, je suis surtout heureux de ne devoir rien qu’à moi-même
(i; t. ii, 683).
I am Oedipus. Fourty years old, twenty years reigning. By the force of my
hands, I have reached the height of happiness. Child lost, found, without
official status, without papers, I am above all happy not to owe anything to
anyone but myself.

The Structure of Myth and the Typology of its Crisis 5
The most clearly observable proof of the claim that myth is made up of
specific elements is the presence of these in texts that intentionally remove
traces of the original storyline; only the reader’s expertise can dust them
off and identify them. Les Gommes, by Robbe-Grillet (1953), is a detec-
tive novel in which a terrorist group’s attempt to assassinate Daniel Dupont
has failed. Wallas, a recently promoted agent, is determined to uncover the
culprits. This plot seems to have nothing to do with the myth of Oedipus.
Along the lines of the Nouveau Roman, the text questions the existence
of any psychological substance. All that remains is a descriptive record of
material atomized into a multiplicity of variants that neutralize any attempt
at finding meaning. Yet all the unvarying elements of the myth are pres-
ent in Les Gommes, even if they are hidden: 1. the uncertain origin of the
protagonist (motifs drawn on a curtain show an abandoned child raised by
shepherds, and Wallas is called a “found child”); 2. the identification of
the protagonist with the killer (the detective unintentionally kills Daniel
Dupont, his father); 3. the riddle posed by the Sphinx (recurrent appearance
of the drunkard who ceaselessly poses the question, “What animal, in the
morning…?”); 4. the relationship between the protagonist and his mother
(Wallas remembers that, as a boy, he had come to the city with his mother);
5. the exile from the city (the detective must resign from his position in
the Investigation Department). Other indications (Corinth Street, the half-
erased name “…di…”, the feet swollen from too much walking) also point
inexorably toward Sophocles’ tragedy; these, however, are less important
for our purpose. Only the five indicators listed comprise the skeleton of the
myth of Oedipus. This is ever more relevant insofar as the aesthetic move-
ment that frames Les Gommes proposes the dissolution of the concepts of
character and meaning. And yet, just as in Gide, both the structure and the
meaning of the text would be considerably diminished if bereft of these
unvarying elements.
1.2. The Articulation of the Mythemes
For there to be myth, there must be at least two mythemes laid out in a
specific combination. This is similar to linguistics, where phemes (distinc-
tive phonic traits) and semes (distinctive semantic traits) are articulated to
configure a phoneme and a sememe. Myths are also constituted by relevant
themes in an equally relevant distribution. When a relevant theme becomes
part of the basic configuration of a singular myth, it then becomes a my-
theme.
The connection of mythemes occurs in two main planes, similar to those
in which signs are associated in language: in praesentia, or syntagmatic,
and in absentia, or paradigmatic. This requires us to explain the degree of

6 Chapter One
abstraction of the invariants (unvarying elements). Components of myth
become related to each other on paradigmatic level, and they substitute each
other in a context, that is, in the syntagmatic level. But in the paradigmatic
level they appear in an abstract or thematic way, just as in the syntagmatic
level they appear in a concrete, phraseological way. It is of particular inter-
est to study the characteristics and consequences of the relationships that the
elements of a given mythic paradigmatic axis establish with the elements of
a given mythic syntagmatic axis. The result will help us clarify which are
the relevant elements of a particular version of a myth, and which are the
unvarying elements of a singular myth.
Now we shall focus on the myth of the vampire. One of its themes is
hematophagy, or feeding on blood. But hematophagy, on its own, is merely
a theme: mosquitoes, too, drink blood, as do ticks, fleas, lice, leeches, lam-
preys, vampire finches, and even some mammals such as the phyllostomi-
dae, called “vampire bats”, of the Desmodontinae subfamily. Feeding on
human blood (human hematophagy) is also (just) a theme, as many mosqui-
toes are nourished on human blood, and so is the resulting parasitism. Even
the transition from a simple to a complex theme (predation > hematophagy
> human hematophagy) does not make the theme inherently mythic. Rather,
when human hematophagy is the sole source of sustenance is when we begin
to see the myth shine through. Indeed, it does not seem natural, nor is there
any scientific basis that sustains the possibility of an organism subsisting
solely on human blood. Furthermore, in the figure of the vampire this type
of predation coincides with other themes: evilness, aversion, and seduction.
These themes, in turn, would be no more than mere thematic compo-
nents if it were not for their intimate relationship with a supernatural dimen-
sion (the diabolical in the case of the vampire). For instance, if we think
about seduction, the peacock spreads its fan of tail feathers to seduce the
female, but this seductive metamorphosis is natural. By contrast, the vam-
pire’s metamorphosis into a cloud of smoke to gain access to the victim, in
addition to the inevitable fascination that entails, demonstrates an incon-
trovertible transcendent dimension that determines that the theme becomes
authentically mythic. Moreover, there can be no predator without a prey,
without another life, without the blood of a living organism: hence the vic-
tim is a theme as well. But, again, this remains a mere theme, even when
the victim is human. The natural victim of a mosquito bite is also human.
We see, then, that it is the diabolical anthropohematophagy that closes the
circle: this is almost the complete shape of myth.
Finally, the transformation that a victim of hematophagy undergoes is
not in itself a mythic theme, either: the infection caused by the parasite
introduced by the predator affects the victim considerably, even bringing
death in its wake in some cases (for instance, with malaria transmitted by

the Anopheles mosquito), but again, the result is natural. Instead, the meta-
morphosis experienced by the victim of a vampire bite is supernatural, since
it causes a substantial change: the victim transforms from human being to
vampiric being. To conclude, the conjunction of all these themes—on the
one hand, the predator’s human hematophagy and seductive metamorpho-
sis, and, on the other, the victim’s metamorphosis into the predator’s dou-
ble—is what makes them mythic, and thus constituents of the myth of the
vampire. The union and combination of mythic themes can only produce
one myth, the definition of which must contain them all in a unified way.
This series of abstractions is exemplified in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
(1897). Count Dracula is the predator par excellence, who, along with his
vampiresses, drinks the blood of his victims to survive and rejuvenate. He is
a murderer (of the zoophagous maniac Renfield), and personifies diabolical
evil (is rendered powerless when facing a consecrated host) and seduction
(of the vampiresses in the castle in Transylvania and of the young Londoners
Lucy and Mina). Among his victims are also the lawyer Jonathan Harker,
Lucy, and Mina, who represent goodness and love.
F. W. Murnau’s film adaptation Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
(1922), presents clear differences, such as the names of the characters
(Dracula/Orlok, Harker/Hutter, Mina/Ellen) and the location (London,
Viborg—Bremen in the French version). The reason for this is well-known:
Murnau, who had not obtained the rights for the story, decided to film his
own version of the novel (this did not, however, prevent him from being
sued for infraction of copyright). The plot changes are even more signifi-
cant: Hutter’s stay in the castle, the epidemic in the city on Orlok’s arrival,
the heroines’fates… From the point of view of myth-criticism, these chang-
es are irrelevant, since they do not affect the unvarying elements of the
myth, that is, the mythemes. The mytheme of the diabolical is exemplary in
the film. In the novel, the protagonists sterilize all the Count’s hideouts in
London by placing consecrated hosts in every casket containing earth from
Transylvania; in the film, while Hutter is having dinner, he cuts his finger,
and Orlok tries to suck his blood, but he holds himself back when he sees
the crucifix that his guest is wearing. While the means by which the Count’s
diabolical nature materializes vary, the mytheme remains the same. This is
what I mean when I say that a mytheme is the unvarying component of a
myth. In the case of the vampire, the diabolical predation is indispensable in
any of its versions; by contrast, the way in which the vampire is fought (with
the Host in the novel) or discovered (with the crucifix in the film) is not.
We have seen how the combination of mythemes, often in a specific
order, originates the myth. Thus, we could define myth as a combination of
mythemes. This means that a specific myth is a specific combination of a
specific set of mythemes. In mythemes and their combination we can find,

8 Chapter One
metaphorically speaking, the genetic code of a myth. In fact, if we consider
mythemes as the genes in a myth’s dna, their combination becomes like a
sequence of dna in a chromosome. All the genetic information of the myth
can be summarized in a simple mythic conjunction: the rest are the varia-
tions of that myth.
It is not unusual for a myth to share mythemes (“genes”) with another,
but the difference between these two myths results from the different com-
position and distribution of their mythemes. When two mythic phenomena
share the same “genetic” composition and distribution, that is, when they
have exactly the same dna, they are the same myth with different variations.
One of the most exciting tasks of myth-criticism is the following process,
divided in phases: a) identifying the mythic tales from within the common
universe of themes, archetypes, images and symbols; b) isolate the myths
contained in those stories; c) group these myths according to their invariants
or mythemes; d) analyze the structure of these mythemes; e) understand the
only possible way in which these mythemes are distributed in order to con-
stitute one single myth, which can then be developed into an infinite number
of mythic variations.
I also like to compare themes and mythemes with the id cards used by
Europeans in their daily lives. Any European citizen can have various types
of cards: to accumulate points at a supermarket, to enter the parking lot at
the workplace, credit or debit cards…All of them are useful, but expendable.
There is only one necessary card for most European citizens: the “national
identity card” (or the passport in some countries, i.e., the United Kingdom
and United States), which includes a series of necessary facts: first and last
name, identification number, fingerprint, expiration date... Among the mass
of cards in a wallet, this is the only administratively valid one. Many citi-
zens also possess other comparable cards, such as a passport or driver’s
license. Only these types of cards are official, i.e., allow for the adminis-
trative identification of the citizen. The others are, administratively speak-
ing, nonfunctional. In a similar way, myths can inform of different realities:
community, space, time, socio-political or economic environments… But
the identity of a myth does not reside there. Its mythic uniqueness, which
defines it and distinguishes it from all other myths, resides in the combina-
tion of its mythemes, like a citizen’s administrative identity is confirmed in
the national identity card, passport, or driver’s license. The other themes,
like the other cards, are the paratexts of myth, an object of the study of its
variations. The configuration of mythemes is the ID of myth.

1.3. The Co-Possession of Mythemes
Just as a myth has various mythemes in a certain combination, various
myths can share one or various mythemes. Mythemes, which are infinite
in theory, are finite in practice. This is why it is possible to establish paral-
lelisms between different myths when they have similar mythemes. This
exercise allows for a better understanding of how mythemes are combined,
how myths can be differentiated, and how to distinguish between myths and
pseudo-myths. Two groups of myths will serve as an example:
1.3.1. Don Juan, Faust, the Vampire, the Fallen Angel
This first group includes two myths (Don Juan and Faust) that appeared
at the beginning of the modern era, and two ancient myths (the vampire and
the fallen angel) which crystallized into their current mythic structure to-
wards the middle of the modern era, specifically, at the end of the eighteenth
century and during Romanticism.
The Don Juan myth is intimately related to the vampire myth: like
Dracula, Don Juan is, depending on the version, a predator of women, dia-
bolical, and a seducer. The myth is also related to the Faust myth. In Goethe’s
Faust. Eine Tragedie (1808), the protagonist, thanks to Mephistopheles, se-
duces Margaret (Gretchen), who dies when she sees the devil again. Similar
analogies can be found amongst Don Juan, Faust, and an ancient myth
popular in Romanticism: the fallen angel. Two theatrical pieces are particu-
larly symptomatic for this purpose. 1. The tragedy Don Juan und Faust by
Grabbe (1829), where Faust makes a pact with the knight (Der Ritter), who
is the representative of the devil or “fallen angel”, and tries to seduce Donna
Anna before causing her death. 2. The fantasy play Don Juan de Maraña ou
la chute d’un ange, by Dumas senior (1836), where Don Josès, stripped of
his inheritance by his brother Don Juan, sells his soul to the devil to get re-
venge, and where a good angel—Le Bon Ange—obtains the Virgin Mary’s
permission to descend to earth, in the appearance of Sœur Marthe, to save
the seducer from Heaven’s wrath. An invisible line unites the unvarying
elements of the myths of Don Juan, Faust, the vampire and the fallen angel;
another runs parallel and does the same with the play’s victims. All of these
hold a notable place in the pantheon of Judaeo-Christian myths.
The relationships between two or more myths allow for very productive
readings. We observe, therefore, that a mytheme could be indispensable in
one myth and in its versions, but only optional in another, where hardly
any version uses it. In the first case, the mytheme belongs; in the second,
it is complementary. The devil (and the pact with him) is necessary in all
versions of Faust, but appears rarely in the different versions of Don Juan.
In the Faust stories the Devil is relevant, for there is no Faust without the

10 Chapter One
Devil. In the Don Juan stories, however, the devil is complementary, such
as in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Don Juan (1812), where the hero’s physiogno-
my acquires traces of Mephistopheles (“etwas vom Mephistopheles in die
Physiognomie”, Fantasiestücke, 1993, 85), or in the aforementioned Don
Juan de Maraña by Dumas, where the Bad Angel disappears after propos-
ing the pact, “Call me, Don Juan, I will come to you” (“Appelle-moi, don
Juan, je monterai vers toi”, 1, 1er tableau, 7, Trois Don Juan, 1995, 55). The
Devil and/or the pact with the Devil emerge occasionally in the Don Juan
myth, proving that it is not an unvarying element of this myth. Lesson: a co-
possession of mythemes does not imply a confusion of myths.
1.3.2. “Der Muselmann”, the Hunchback, the Werewolf, and the
Vampire
We have just seen an example of a grouping of several myths by a co-
possession of mythemes. We should also group myths from the opposite
perspective, that is, not by the connection between the myths themselves
but by one mytheme only. The group that is subsequently brought up thus
contains four “myths” (the discrimination will come shortly) the origin
of which does not matter now as much as the mytheme that groups them:
mythic hybridization.
Hybridization has always been a breeding ground for myths. In Se
questo è un uomo (1947), Primo Levi describes interesting characters from
Auschwitz, a sort of zombies:
Lalorovitaèbreve,mailloronumeroèsterminato;sonoloro,iMuselmänner,
i sommersi, il nerbo del campo; loro, la massa anonima, continuamente rin-
novata e sempre identica, dei non-uomini che marciano e faticano in silen-
zio, spenta in loro la scintilla divina, già troppo vuoti per soffrire veramente.
Si esita a chiamarli vivi: si esita a chiamar morte la loro morte, davanti a cui
essi non temono perché sono troppo stanchi per comprenderla.
Their life is brief, but their number is limitless; they are the Muselmänner,
the sunken, the foundation of the camp; they, the anonymous mass, continu-
ally renewed and always identical, of un-men that march and toil in silence,
the divine flame in them gone out, already too empty to truly suffer. One
hesitates to call them alive: one hesitates to name their death ‘death’, in the
face of which they do not fear, for they are too tired to understand it (2005,
120-21).
Monsters according to Foucault’s definition, Muselmänner present char-
acteristics closely related to those of werewolves, not in the fusion of hu-
man and lupine nature, but in the social exclusion and, more concretely, in
their “relative” life according to the parameters of society. Peter Arnds has

observed this well: “The Muselmann between life and death is the twentieth
century’s version of the medieval wolfman between human and animal”
(361). Arnds also establishes a relationship between the werewolf and the
hunchback, the modern metaphor of the representation of the monstrous, as
various texts he has selected show: The Tin Drum (Günter Grass), Le Roi
des aulnes (Michel Tournier), and Se questo è un uomo (Primo Levi). Oskar
Matzerath, Abel Tiffauges or the dwarf Elias respectively, act as representa-
tions of mythic concepts (the sub-human, the superman, the monster hybrid
between animal and human).
Peter Arnds’ interpretation brings to the table the current remodeling of
ancient and medieval myths. Even by scratching the surface of the texts,
we can contrast these modulations throughout history. Take the case of the
hunchback. In Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), by Victor Hugo, the narrator
defines the famous Quasimodo as an instinctual and savage half-man (“sorte
de demi-homme instinctif et sauvage;” 1. iv, ch. 5, 160). On the border
between beast and man, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame is in an uncertain,
ambivalent position, in the ante-chamber of the sinister, concomitant, to a
large extent, with the mythic. The setting of the novel in the Late Middle
Ages, specifically in 1482, responds to the mythic dimension of the era in
the creative imagination of the author.
Surely, this mythic interpretation of two social and literary types (the
Muselmann and the hunchback) cannot escape a brief discussion. In my
opinion, the co-possession of mythemes is less real than imaginary. They
are not hybrids; rather, they are attributed hybrid qualities, analogous to real
hybridizations, by the other characters (the prisoners of the concentration
camps and the citizens of Paris), unlike the werewolf or the vampire, who
truly are hybrid beings. One could say that the imaginary co-possession of
mythemes opens a more or less ephemeral mythologizing process: this co-
possession, then, gives them a similar mythic “side” But to be precise, they
lack an authentic mythic dimension.
What we can most clearly learn from this analysis is to understand, by
contrasting mythemes, the authentic hybridization of two other myths: the
werewolf and the vampire. Let us take the case of the werewolf, that ancient
myth that achieves particular fame in the Middle Ages. In the lai called
Bisclavret, by Marie de France (1160-75), we read:
Jadis le poeit hume oïr,
E sovent suleit avenir,
Humes plusurs garval devindrent
E es boscages meisun tindrent
(1959, 56).

12 Chapter One
Once, one could hear it told,
And oft it happened,
That many a man a were-wolf became
And the woods had as a dwelling.
The Old French term garval (also garwaf, garvalf) comes from the
Frankish *wariwulf or *werewolf (close to the English werewolf) and means
the same as “wolfman”, since wer (as in Old English) comes from the Indo-
European *wiro (“man”, such as vir in Latin) and wulf (“wolf”). The garval,
like any werewolf, adopts its lupine form and ferocity at night, but returns to
human form and rationality in the day. A similar ambiguity affects the vam-
pire, who has to sleep in the daytime and hunt at night. Both beings used to
be human but are now a wolf and a vampire that adopt a human appearance
in the daytime. This appearance is a negative one: in the daytime, they do
not behave according to their true form.
Nonetheless, the human appearance of these beings keeps popular
imagination from identifying them as mere animals (a wolf, a vampire bat).
This is the root of their mythic nature: the extraordinary combination of an
animal nature and a human (in this case, daytime) appearance. Symbols of
group and solitary nocturnal predation respectively, wolves (the largest car-
nivorous mammal in Europe) and vampires (the only flying mammal) have
fascinated the imagination of European inhabitants since ancient times.
These Europeans do not hesitate to project themselves onto these symbols,
while at the same time remaining themselves. The resulting ambiguity of
this hybridization is, without any doubt, mythic.
2. The Crisis of Myth
Once we have established the structure of myths through its basic prin-
ciples, we are ready to tackle the dangers that threaten it: distortion, devia-
tion, and disappearance. But what does this mean?
In the traditional formula, man is born, grows, reproduces, and dies. The
same does not occur with myth. Unlike man, where biology plays an irre-
placeable role, myth is an eminently cultural product; as such, its endurance
does not depend as much on the vicissitudes that affect every person as on
those that affect every civilization.
Myth has its roots in human beings, in their cognitive, volitional, and
imaginative faculties… and even in their biology. In this way, it does de-
pend on the vicissitudes that affect every human being: myth can also “die”
in each person, independently of its development in a culture. Its consis-
tency is continually threatened, as we see in Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann
(1817). Clara, Nathanael’s lover, is convinced that Coppelius and Coppola
only exist in the young man’s imagination, that they are phantoms of his

own self, and that they will disappear like dust as soon as he realizes this
(“daβ Coppelius und Coppola nur in meinem Innern existieren und Fantome
meines Ich’s sind, die augenblicklich zerstäuben, wenn ich sie als solche,
erkenne”, Nachstücke, 1985, 24). Nathanael even begins to accept that the
attorney and barometer dealer are two distinct people, the former German,
the latter Italian; the myth suffers when encountering Clara’s “didactic” rea-
soning. Nonetheless, the fantastic nature of the story continues the confu-
sion of imagination and reality, which becomes a paroxysm in the mind of
the protagonist, because of the optical illusion of the automaton, and thus
triggers his madness. The final appearance of Coppelius among the curious
bystanders after Nathanael’s suicide transfers the uncertainty to the reader’s
mind: the myth recovers its consistency.
These vicissitudes—of every culture, every woman and every man—
bring about a “crisis” of myth which must be analyzed. The way in which
myth, because of its development in the story, reacts to that crisis will lead
to its resurgence, its degeneration or its decease. In this way, the conditions
under which myths adapt to the crises that threaten them are an indispens-
able element of myth-criticism.
These conditions of adaptation are intimately related to mythic invari-
ants, or mythemes. Mythic invariants make up the skeleton of myth, the
structure that gives a story mythic consistency. To be precise, myth never
exists only in “bone” but in “flesh and bone”, i.e., in cultural, anthropologi-
cal, and sociological phenomena, most of the time through artistic or liter-
ary resorts. In other words, myths are inseparable from the combinations
that they form amongst themselves. Earlier, we superficially analyzed some
of these relationships (articulation, co-possession, relevance, and comple-
mentarity). Now, we must analyze the different crises that threaten myths
as a consequence of the shift of these relationships among their mythemes.
2.1. Typology of the Crisis of Myth
There are various types of crisis of myth, depending on the mythemes.
I will discuss three:
1. The relative modification of a myth’s constitutive or unvarying ele-
ments causes its distortion. In these cases, the myth is easily recognizable.
2. The inversion of a myth’s constitutive elements causes its subversion.
The myth is still recognizable, but its appearance is noticeably changed.
3. The absolute modification and even suppression of a myth’s constitu-
tive elements implies different consequences, depending on the case: dif-
ficulty in identifying the myth, disappearance, transformation, demytholo-
gizing, etc.

14 Chapter One
Beyond the crisis that affects specific myths, depending on the internal
structure of each, there is another problem: the crisis of myth itself, particu-
larly infamous in postmodernity. Unlike in other eras, myths are not regu-
larly the primary subjects of the plot—as in the classical period—or even
their complementary motifs—as in Romanticism. Certainly, current literary
and artistic creation tends to reject the mythic dimension as a basis, but this
does not mean the disappearance of myth. Truth be told, it is not as much a
problem of myth as it is a problem of contemporaneity itself: its question-
ing of artistic creation, of the author, of characters, and even of the reader.
Despite this crisis, myth endures in one way or another.
My thesis about the mythic “skeleton” is that, despite appearances, the
absolute modification of unvarying elements is truly rare. The mythologi-
cal universe is immense precisely because individual mythemes are rela-
tively easily modified. These changes suppose a distancing from the rule, a
“heresy” of the canon shaping a specific myth tradition. But this is normal:
literature and the arts are characterized by their subversive, heterodox, and
consequently, heretical quality compared to the “ideal” standard of each
myth. In reality, the history of myth is a continuous variation of the constitu-
tive mythic elements. Myth is less fragile than it seems.
In a parallel way, it would be useful to consider that relative or absolute
modifications of a myth’s constitutive elements are products of the times
and, for that reason, reveal not only the conditions of the mythemes, but also
the conditions of each time, place, and civilization.
Next, we shall study cases of myth variations regarding the relative and
absolute modifications of their mythemes.
2.1.1. Relative Modification of Mythemes, Distortion of Myth
An example from the Bible: the traditional angels of Judeo-Christian
culture. In the contemporary Western world, they are still the messengers
and helpers of human beings, but they have lost some of the characteristics
specific to the Jewish or Christian angel. Instead, they adopt others from our
era, and so the angels of today are spiritual beings endowed with a body,
completely in tune with the New Age movement.
Consequently, one could argue that this materialization of angels implies
an absolute modification of an unvarying element, a disappearance of the
angels of myth. It is true that according to Christian doctrine, angels are
created beings endowed with exclusively spiritual substance, superior to hu-
mans and inferior to God, who undertake specific missions. This is a theo-
logical definition debated by Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, 1a
, 50,
a.1) and declared by Pius x in his motu proprio “Doctoris Angelici”, from
1914 (“Creatura spiritualis est in sua essentia omnino simplex”). According

to Thomistic thought, angels are only composed of essence in their being,
and composed of substance through accidents, and not made of spirit with
matter (as is the case with humans). But we cannot confuse a theological
definition, later adopted as dogma by the Catholic Church, with the mythic
development of the figure of the angel. We cannot confuse either the theol-
ogy or the theme of the angel with the myth of the angel.
Since very ancient times, angels were conceived as spiritual beings en-
dowed with matter. This belief was common, even among numerous Church
Fathers of the West and East. The fact that our time continues to identify
angels independently of their material or spiritual nature clarifies for us the
variable nature of this element in the plane of myth: absolute spirituality is
not a mytheme of the myth of angels.
This does not preclude spirituality from being preponderant over ma-
teriality in the angel myth (similar to how the werewolf’s lupine nature
predominates over the human). Furthermore, the mythic quality of the angel
is based on its spiritual predominance, as its iconography makes clear: it is
frequently represented with wings, able to move around without the mate-
rial restrictions to which human beings are subject (slowness, grounding on
the earth, impossibility of passing through matter…). This spiritual preva-
lence is indeed an invariant of myth, as is the role of undertaking specific
missions, such as transmitting messages or predicting the future. Any sub-
stantial adjustment of these unvarying elements (spirituality, message, or
mission) would indeed constitute a disappearance of the angel myth.
In the case that concerns us, contemporary angels do not forego their at-
tributes or missions, but these mythemes suffer a relative adjustment. To this
end, the film Michael (Nora Ephron, 1996) is very illuminating. Evidently,
this archangel’s (John Travolta) taste for wine and women distances him
from the religious stereotype, but his name (the most important of the arch-
angels), his wings (even if filthy), and his mission (to fix broken hearts) suf-
fice to place him in the mythic world in which we would expect to find an
angel. The film somewhat distorts the traditional myth, but does not render
it unrecognizable. One could say the same of Dudley (Denzel Washington),
the angel sent to the reverend Henry Biggs to save him from his familial and
financial troubles in the film The Preacher’s Wife (Penny Marshall, 1996). It
matters little that, because of his attraction to Julia, Henry’s wife, Dudley is
almost led astray in his purpose: his spiritual nature is made manifest in his
mission among humans.
When asked about the angelic spirits in her film Michael, Nora Ephron
replies: “I think angels have become the embodiment of fate, and love, and
a need to believe that there is a God and that God cares about the details”,
(“The Morning Call”, 12/21/1996). This combination of spirit and matter,
especially underscored in this “incarnation” of angels, is an adjustment of

16 Chapter One
our time, a relative change that does not keep them from completing their
mission: getting humans in contact with God.
2.1.2. Inversion of Mythemes, Subversion of Myth
In order to show the refractory nature of myth, which resists intense
assaults upon its unvarying elements, I shall discuss a variation in stat-
ure: subverted myth (already discussed at length in the volume Myth and
Subversion, Losada, 2011, but not from the point of view of the structure
and crisis of myth, which concerns us here).
I will discuss three examples of subversion: two ancient myths
(Pygmalion and the Trojan War) and one medieval myth (the Holy Grail), in
order to analyze their crisis.
2.1.2.1. Pygmalion
Pygmalion is the famed sculptor who fell in love with the statue of a
young woman, sculpted by his own hands. According to Ovid, his prayers
that his wife be “similar to the one made of ivory” (Metamorphosis 10)
earned Venus’ approval. The unvarying elements are clear: the artist’s fall-
ing in love with his own work and the statue’s vivification. In the original
version, when she comes to life and feels the enamored sculptor’s kisses,
the young woman blushes; then they marry, and from this union, Paphos is
born.
It is typical that Ovid’s text does not discuss Galatea’s love for
Pygmalion: a mutual love is not an indispensable element of this myth. In
fact, the different modern versions expand on the impossibility of a love
between the artist and his work. In Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1912),
Eliza rejects the love of her “sculptor-professor” Higgins and opts for the
poor Freddy. The various film versions develop in a similar way: Anthony
Asquith and Leslie Howard’s Pygmalion (1938), George Cukor’s musical
My Fair Lady (1964), and Andrew Niccol’s Simone (2002).
I shall briefly discuss another version of the myth: the theatrical piece
El Señor de Pigmalión, by Jacinto Grau (1921). Pigmalión, who owns a
company in which he makes dolls, is in love with his doll Pomponina. When
he introduces her to theater directors, the night before a public showing, a
duke takes a fancy to her and convinces her to run away with him. All the
dolls take advantage of the occasion to escape from their tyrannical owner.
Pigmalión manages to get them back, but he is gravely wounded by a shot
that the doll Urdemalas fires at him.
Aside from the dramatized prologue—a protest against commercial-
ized theater, obsessed with financial gain—, the play remains faithful to
the constitutive elements of the myth: the dolls come to life and the artist

falls in love with one of them. The doll-protagonist casts aside her maker,
Pigmalión, and the rich duke, and instead gives her charms over to the most
unexpected suitor, the old man Mingo. Eliza’s indifference to Higgins’s love
turns, here, into Pomponina’s hatred for Pigmalión; and yet, the myth sur-
vives, an evident proof that the created being’s returning her creator’s love
is not an unvarying element: Ovid did not base this myth on Galatea’s love.
(We do find an artificial being’s “amorous passion” in the film Her [Spike
Jonze, 2013], in which Samantha, an intelligent operating system, confesses
to having fallen in love with hundreds of users…, see in this volume Adrián
García Vidal’s article.)
The greatest innovation of all is Pigmalión’s death at the hands of his
dolls. Enraged by their maker’s tyranny, they all fear and despise him, but
only Urdemalas is capable of rebelling, honoring his name.Availing himself
of his master’s inattention, he fires a shot at point-blank. All of them flee.
When Pigmalión painfully lifts himself off the ground, he cries out the fol-
lowing eloquent words:
¡No puedo!... ¡Me desangro, me muero solo, sin que nadie me auxilie!... Los
dioses vencen eternamente, aniquilando al que quiere robarles su secreto…
Iba a superar al ser humano, y mis primeros autómatas de ensayo me matan
alevosamente… ¡Triste sino del hombre héroe, humillado continuamente
hasta ahora, en su soberbia, por los propios fantoches de su fantasía!... (a. iii,
escena última; 1977, 113).
I cannot! I am bleeding out, I am dying alone, with no-one to help me!...
The gods conquer eternally, obliterating anyone who wants to steal their
secret… I was to become greater than a human being, and my first attempts
at automata kill me treacherously… Oh sad fate of a heroic man, continually
humbled until now, in his pride, by the very puppets of his fantasy (act iii,
last scene; 1977, 113)!
He then discovers that he is not alone: Juan the Fool has not yet left.
While he awaits his help, the doll finishes him off in one blast of a shotgun,
and disappears after making grotesque faces and rubbing his hands together
in glee.
The subversion of the myth is complete: the created kills the creator.
After receiving the shotgun blast from the doll, “Pigmalión”, I quote, “hits
the ground forcefully with his bust” (“Pigmalión da con el busto presada-
mente en tierra”). This scene is the exact opposite of the ancient version
of myth, wherein Pygmalion realized that the marble “bust” was gradually
coming alive, that is, was rising from the ground. The mytheme of the dolls’
vivification does not appear explicitly, but it does remain latent, so that the
murder of the creator at the hand of his creations does not completely invali-
date it. As was said, the core of myth lives on; the text is perfectly framed

18 Chapter One
within the Pygmalion myth. The conclusion to be drawn is that the absolute
inversion of the mytheme of animation does not invalidate the myth.
2.1.2.2. The Trojan War
I also propose that the absolute inversion of the invariant does not in-
validate the myth, even in the most extreme cases. In the 13th
scene of the
second act of La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu, by Giraudoux (1935), the
hero from Ithaca begins to return to his boat: despite fate, he and Hector
have achieved peace. In the 14th
and last scene, the Greek Oiax reappears,
drunk, and provokes Hector in the person of Cassandra, but Priam’s son
holds himself back, and does not kill him in order to maintain the pact.
Demokos arrives unexpectedly, angered by the concessions in the pact, and
rouses the Trojans to war. Hector, determined to maintain the pact, kills the
Trojan who, before dying, falsely accuses Oiax of his murder. The Trojans
cry out for vengeance, and Hector exclaims, powerless, that the war will
take place (“Elle aura lieu”, ii.14: 1991, 163), as confirmed by the opening
of the war gates and Helen’s newest infidelity. Cassandra announces her
prophesy: “The Trojan poet has died…. The Greek poet will have his word”
(“Le poète troyen est mort…La parole est au poète grec”, ibid.). The seer’s
prediction heralds the story to come, The Iliad.
A question: if the war, as the provocative title of the play announces,
had not occurred, could we talk about the myth of the Trojan War? Yes. I
am aware that a voice as authoritative as Genette asserts the contrary. The
dramaturge had “little room for maneuvering” (Palimpsestes, 531). Homer
had decreed that Hector should fail in his attempts to avoid the war: the
whole play would be a sort of grand variation in the form of a prelude play-
ing with a preordained conclusion, like a mouse thinks it is playing with a
cat. Colette Weill develops this further: “as the story situates itself before
the legend, the myth cannot be inverted, it will be as if…suspended; […] but
in the end we shall find the story we expected: the war «will take place»”
(ed. 1991, 21). I believe that the author is free to make, unmake, and recre-
ate the story, whether the Homeric or the factual. If in the end the Trojans
had not killed Oiax, Ulysses might have been successful in his mission,
Helen would have returned with her husband Menelaus, and we would still
have lived through two tragic hours. The Trojan “war” is not the myth of
“the Trojan War”, while the enmity between Greeks and Trojans (after the
discord among gods) “is”, as is the casus belli (the abduction of Helen, the
result of Aphrodite’s former promise)—both possessing a mythic dimen-
sion. Their appearance in Giraudoux’s play makes it a variant of the myth.

2.1.2.3. The Grail (i)
In Le Conte du Graal by Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1180), the knight
Perceval, housed in the castle of the Fisher King, witnesses a strange pro-
cession as he dines with his host in a banquet hall: parading before them
are a page with a bloody lance, followed by two with gold candelabra and
accompanied by a very elegantly-attired young woman, who carries in her
hands a golden grail (bowl or cup), encrusted with precious stones, out of
which emanates a dazzling light. The young woman with the cup passes
and, along with the three pages, she walks into an adjoining chamber. After
her, another young woman passes by, with a silver tray to cut meat. Perceval
is perplexed, but does not dare to ask what the grail is used for, for he holds
in his heart the words of gentleman Gornemant de Goort, who had advised
him to be cautious (“Le jeune homme les vit passer et il n’osa pas deman-
der qui l’on servait de ce grail, car il avait tojours au coeur la parole du
sage gentilhomme”, ed. 2003, 141). Later, Perceval’s cousin, in the forest,
reveals his irreparable error and misfortune: if he had asked during the pro-
cession, the sickly king would have regained his health, the use of his limbs,
and the dominion of his lands (“car tu aurais bien pu guérir le bon roi qui est
infirme qu’il eût recouvré l’entier usage de ses membres et le maintien de
ses terres”, 147). After five years of searching in vain, three knights and six
penitent ladies lead Perceval to a hermit who unearths the mystery for him:
“A single host that is brought to him in that grail sustains and brings comfort
to that holy man” (ed. 2004, 460; “Le saint home, d’une simple hostie qu’on
lui apporte dans ce graal, soutient et fortifie sa vie”, 195). The Eucharistic
sacrament provides immortality for the soul. By a generalizing or inductive
synecdoche, the cup that holds it becomes consecrated, and itself turns into
the Eucharistic myth par excellence: the Holy Grail.
Since its literary origins, the chalice of Christian communion intersects
with Celtic mythology: the hideous woman who reproaches Perceval, the
curse controlling the lands of the injured king, etc. From this symbiosis be-
tween the mythologized Christian Grail and the Celtic legend, very soon the
cup from Jesus’Last Supper acquires new significances in the continuations
of the Grail story. In the Première Continuation (c. 1200), protagonized
by Gauvain, the Grail is suspended in the air while he serves his guests.
In the Seconde Continuation (c. 1208), the Grail is once again carried in
front of Perceval, who this time does ask the questions and receives, after
a second test, the answers. In the Troisième Continuation or Continuation
de Manessier the Grail procession is renewed, the Fisher King explains to
Perceval that the bloody lance is the spear that Longinus used to pierce
Christ’s side and that the Grail had been used to collect his blood after the
crucifixion; in the end, the narrator leads us to believe that Perceval takes the
Grail, the lance, and the tray with him to Heaven. In the Roman de l’histoire

20 Chapter One
du Graal (c. 1200), Robert de Boron combines the Gospel of Nicodemus
with other Arthurian and Christian legends. Here, the Grail appears inti-
mately tied to the Last Supper and Jesus’ passion: it had been entrusted to
Joseph of Arimathea, who collected Christ’s precious blood in it as it fell
from the cross. The cup is also miraculous (“il agrée”), that it to say, it gives
grace to the good and the pure. In this story, Joseph of Arimathea’s brother-
in-law founds the lineage of the guardians of the Holy Grail that, following
Jesus’ orders, settle in England. Perlesvaus (c. 1230) gives a Eucharistic
explanation for the Grail and associates it with the search and hope for the
future kingdom; a voice from above unveils God’s will to the hero and his
men (that they give His relics to the hermits in the woods) and announces
to them that the Grail will not return, but they will soon know its resting-
place (“Le Saint Graal ne viendra plus jamais ici, mais vous apprendrez
avant longtemps où il se trouve”). The Élucidation (by Maître Blihis?) sug-
gests a secret interpretation of the Grail, in which the defilement of a young
woman is associated with the theft of the golden cup, occurrences that bring
about several misfortunes. Along this line, progressing in time, in the third
part of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (c. 1470) the legend appears
in a Grail copy carved by Solomon from a gem of Lucifer’s, used by Jesus
in his last supper and preserved by Joseph of Arimathea during the Lord’s
Passion. Lost in England, the Knights of the Round Table pledge their lives
to recovering it. In more recent times, Wagner’s Parsifal (1882) also uses
the redemptive meaning of the sacred cup, guarded on Montsalvat by King
Titurel and his faithful knights, while also transferring to the Holy Lance
the power of curing mortal wounds. The texts are countless: I have chosen
these as indispensable for understanding the unvarying elements of myth.
In this brief review, especially in the thirteenth century, we observe that
this unique container appears under multiple appearances, from which we
can synthetically extract its mythemes. Situated in the utopic place and the
ahistorical time of King Arthur, the Grail is a relic linked in its origins to the
passion of Christ (not only to the Last Supper). Because of its connection to
the Redeemer, the holy vessel materializes the union of Heaven and earth,
as Michel Stanesco also claimed about the procession episode in Chrétien’s
work:
…ce sera précisément dans cet espace épuré, à la jonction des univers d’en
bas et d’en haut, d’ici et d’ailleurs, qu’apparaîtra le château du Graal, où se
jouera le destin d’un homme comme celui d’un monde (ed. 2003, 9).
…it will be precisely in this purified space, at the junction of the universes of
above and below, of here and beyond, that the castle of the Grail will appear,
the place where the fate of a man, like that of a world, is in play.

From here derives the immense value of the cup, which can heal physi-
cal and spiritual ailments. Like an amulet or, better, a talisman (from the
Arabic ‫,مسالط‬ tilasm, and the Greek τελέω, “to initiate in the mysteries”),
the Grail symbolizes a supernatural power, depending on the versions, as
much for the material it is made of as for its content (perhaps reading my
article “La nature mythique du Graal…” could be useful for understanding
the subject; see Bibliography).
This force of the Grail, whether a real faculty or an apotropaic effect,
makes it an object of desire and the object of a knightly quest, in the sense
that it is the object that triggers a mythic quest of initiation. It is worth
stressing that the appetite for the Grail does not merely set off a series of
adventures; it is not only a “theme” structuring a plot. It involves a mythic
quest, in which a viator discovers, through a series of extraordinary adven-
tures, his own identity and becomes a miles, a soldier, of a type similar to St.
George or St. Michael, icons of the solar knight and slayer of the dragon, it-
self the chthonic evil creature (Stanesco, 30). The Grail is a Christian-Celtic
relic, an object of desire because of its supernatural and/or magical virtues.
Other spurious elements can be added to the tradition of the myth. In
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (c. 1210), the Grail is a stone descend-
ed from heaven that, besides bestowing food and drink at will, restores its
pure-hearted guardians to the beauty of youth. In Rabelais’ Quart Livre
(1552), the Grail is parodied when the Queen of the Chitterlings explains
that the mustard for her servants is “her Holy Grail and celestial Balsam”.
In the last century, Julien Gracq’s Le Roi Pêcheur (1948) includes a king
afflicted by a wound, inhabitants held captive by spells, and a Perceval
thrilled at having reclaimed the Grail; the piece is a metaphor for the pleni-
tude and happiness of human life. In Pierre Benoit’s Montsalvat (1957), the
relic appears as a “power that it is better not to know”. In accordance with
the world of alchemy, the Grail becomes a token of bodily immortality and
acquires inscrutable derivatives, doubtlessly favored by Robert de Boron’s
version, where Christ taught a secret lesson to Joseph of Arimathea. The
Grail’s esoteric dimension, surely motivated by the pagan derivatives of the
legend, causes an ambiguity of meaning.
Along these lines, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg,
1989) combines all the elements that make up a breeding ground for ritu-
al. The protagonist (Harrison Ford) sets off to find Henry Jones, his father
(Sean Connery), an academic who disappeared while he was searching for
the Grail. Indy and Elsa are in the brink of death when the Brotherhood of
the Cruciform Sword, the secret society that protects the Grail from the im-
pure, sets fire to the catacombs. Thanks to one of these knights, Indy finds
his father, who had been kidnapped by the Nazis so that he could take them
to the Grail. Adventures ensue, and Henry is mortally wounded: in the end,

22 Chapter One
the water he drinks from the Grail saves him, before the temple collapses
and the cup disappears into the abyss… Spielberg’s film has all manner
of flavors: a combination of Christian and pagan traditions, esotericism,
curative powers and immortality. The film assumes the unvarying original
elements—the Christian relic, its supernatural faculties, the quest and the
desire to possess the Grail for its supernatural reasons—and adds the vary-
ing elements that were later incorporated—the safekeeping of the vessel and
its esoteric meaning.
The inversions produced in the Grail myth come to view. In the medieval
versions, the foundational metonymy—designating Jesus’ body or blood
(the content) through the vessel (the container)—and metaphor—applying
the quality of the sacred to the vessel for the co-possession of semes after
the application of metonymy—led into the great metaphorical derivative,
which is also foundational: the immortality of the soul of whoever possesses
and guards the Grail. The contemporary versions invert the meaning of this
metaphor: immortality does not affect the soul but the body. Similarly, the
search for transcendence—the Grail as an object of desire or as the object
pursued in a mythic quest of initiation—turns into a greater understanding
of man in today’s world, whether due to the reencounter with the father
(Indiana Jones) or to the obtaining of human happiness (Le Roi Pêcheur).
The fundamental invariants have not been destroyed, rather they have been
subverted; they do not eliminate the tradition of the Grail: the myth is still
recognizable.
2.1.3. Absolute Modification and Suppression of Mythemes, Disap-
pearance of Myth
Until now, everything has seemed to obey the instinct of preserving
myth: a survival peppered with relative modifications or inversions that only
distort or subvert the myth. Nonetheless, on occasion, an absolute modifica-
tion and suppression of mythemes can entail a crisis of great importance in
myth, which becomes unidentifiable, is transformed, or even disappears.
Here I shall use an ancient myth (Ariadne) that becomes unrecogniz-
able; another, a modern myth (Frankenstein), that results from the radical
transformation of another ancient one (Pygmalion), and shall again take up
the medieval case we already studied (the Grail) to analyze its unexpected
disappearance in a contemporary text.
2.1.3.1. Ariadne
Constitutive elements of the Ariadne myth are her assistance to the hero
when he faces an insuperable test (the Minotaur and the inescapable mythic

Labyrinth) and her accursed or providential fate (Theseus’ abandonment
leads her to suicide or glory, depending on the version). In the story Ariane
by Le Clézio (1982), Christine wanders through the city streets; sudden-
ly surrounded by motorcyclists, she tries to escape but ends up raped and
abandoned. Nothing seems to remain of the original myth except the name,
and even that could be referencing, preceded by the definite article, to the
working-class neighborhood L’Ariane in Nice, where Christine’s tragic
story takes place. The connection, although tenuous, seems intentional. One
might say that the myth has been rewritten in a subverted way: the slum
becomes a labyrinthine backdrop where the young woman is imprisoned
by the Minotaur (the bikers) and thereafter abandoned without any hope of
vengeance or rehabilitation (“If you talk, we’ll kill you”: her act of washing
her face in the rear-view mirror of a car means that nobody will know what
happened). Christine is an Ariadne that has not found the ball of string to
escape from the Labyrinth or a hero able to confront the Minotaur (Herrero
Cecilia, 121). The absence of Theseus emphasizes even further the indif-
ference that the bandits’ violence represents. Nevertheless, we must admit
that the presence of the Ariadne myth here can be contested; the disappear-
ance of some cardinal mythemes, when not suppressing the myth, makes it
almost unrecognizable.
2.1.3.2. Frankenstein
Now that I am in the midst of many disquisitions on the idiosyncrasy
of mythemes, I will briefly look at a myth closely related to the Pygmalion
myth: the myth of Frankenstein, i.e., of the doctor who makes men (inter-
estingly, transposing the doctor’s name onto the monster through a process
of causal metonymy does not affect the myth). It first appeared in litera-
ture in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818).
Thereafter, it has been embodied in dozens of film adaptations. Generally,
the hero is the prisoner of his fate: the monster cannot survive his creator, as
is the case, for instance, in the film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Kenneth
Branagh (1994).
Doctor Frankenstein shares a mytheme with Pygmalion: the coming to
life of an artificial creature. The capability of giving life, of being in that
sense like God, is as old as the origins of humans: “You will be as gods”,
whispers the serpent into Eve’s ear in Eden (Gen. 3:5). But these are two
different myths:
― In the case of Pygmalion, the sculptor carves a statue, falls in love
with it (treats it as a woman), and asks the gods to have a wife as beautiful
as his statute (“similar to the one made of ivory”, Metamorphosis 10, 276,
567).

24 Chapter One
― In the case of Frankenstein, the doctor applies biological materials
and mechanical instruments in accordance with his scientific and para-sci-
entific knowledge and, like Pygmalion, confusedly witnesses those materi-
als coming to life.
The shared mytheme—animation—requires a fundamental clarification.
The distinctive trait of Frankenstein compared to that of Pygmalion is the
authorship of the handiwork’s vivification. Pygmalion does not give life,
instead only asks a gift from the gods, who do the rest. Frankenstein, by
contrast, does give life to the creature:
After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in dis-
covering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capa-
ble of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. […] I collected the instru-
ments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless
thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered
dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by
the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs
(ch. 4-5; 1999, 41-45).
If we observe carefully, we will notice that here there is not just one, but
two mythemes:
― The first, identical to the Pygmalion episode, is vivification, enriched
in both cases by animation (indeed, animation is a more complex step, after
vivification; not all animals have a soul). As with the Cypriot predecessor,
we witness the animation (a human one, in the case of Pygmalion, quasi-
human, in that of Frankenstein) of inert material (an ivory status, and a fu-
sion of parts of a corpse and mechanical tools).
― The second, different from the Pygmalion episode, is the animation
of a man. If the vivification achieved by God already has mythical logic,
this is even more the case when a man is the one to give life and soul to
another man. Doctor Frankenstein has not only witnessed the animation of
“the lifeless thing”, but instead has himself given this animation (“I became
myself capable of bestowing animation”). Pygmalion was a spectator of the
wonder worked before his eyes; Victor Frankenstein becomes a vivifier and
animator, a creator.
― But only by analogy: to be a true creator, the episode would need a
third mytheme, the creation in its own sense, in other words, bringing into
existence something nonexistent. Then we would have a submytheme: the
creating man. Nevertheless, the text does not allow us to hypothesize that
Doctor Frankenstein, aside from giving life to a set of materials with his
instruments, “creates” the soul of the monster: he only manipulates. The
subtitle of the novel is eloquent: The Modern Prometheus.

Other types of contemporary creation, centered on the combination of
natural and cybernetic organisms, confront such aporiae: the cyborg or the
android, for instance. Scientific obstacles to the viability of these projects
make them, sooner or later, reach the limits of the human condition, be-
yond which one finds the world of myth (on the cyborg, see Gallinal, 2015).
Humans cannot un-hear the serpent’s whisper; in the era of digitalization,
more than ever, humans do not resist the temptation to transform them-
selves, to improve themselves or even to technically surpass their biological
or natural limits. The mythic derivative is evident. Each of these attempts
constitutes a link in the chain of mythic transmutation, which here can only
be listed through its most memorable referents: Prometheus → Pygmalion
→ Frankenstein → Cyborg → Android → the Matrix universe.
2.1.3.3. The Grail (ii)
I will now discuss a case of disappearance of myth, using an example
already discussed. To begin with, I will try to show the interweaving of a
Christian and a pagan mytheme; Secondly, I will try to show how the elimi-
nation of the first mytheme to focus exclusively on the second causes such
a significant crisis in the newer text that it brings about the disappearance of
the foundational myth.
The Perceval story reads like this: “At the end of five years, it hap-
pened that he walked through a desert land…” (“Au chief de ces.V. anz
advent / Que il par un desert aloit…”, following the Burgundian text from
the first half of the fourteenth century, ed. 1990, v. 6164-65). When the
Celtic and Christian mythologies blend, the interpretations concerning this
“desert” land (a reflection of the “terre gaste” that surrounds the Castle of
Bel Repaire, v. 1667), are of capital importance.
In the Grail Castle, the Fisher King confessed to Perceval his inability
to move: “Friend, do not be aggrieved / if I do not arise to greet you, / For
I am not able” (“Amis, ne vos soit grief / Se encontre vos ne me lief, / Que
je n’en sui mie aeisiez.”, v. 3045-47). The explanation comes later, given by
the knight’s cousin:
…il fu en une bataille
Navrez et mehaigniez sanz faille
Si que puis aidier ne se pot.
Si fu navrez d’un javelot
Parmi les anches amedeus,
S’en est encore si engoiseus
Qu’il ne puet sor cheval monter
(v. 3447-53).

26 Chapter One
He was in a battle injured and gravely mutilated, to the point that he could
not keep himself standing. He was wounded by a lance in the leg. He is still
so afflicted by it that he cannot ride a horse.
These words clarify, in a natural way, an enigma about a natural ailment;
the mystery becomes clearer. Until this point, everything seems to follow
the order of our expectations.
The supernatural drift comes later, in the mouth of the first hermit, when
he reveals to Perceval that the procession entered the chamber of the Fisher
King’s father, “a saintly man, who with one sole Host brought from that
grail, is sustained and strengthened” (“D’une sole hoiste li sainz hom, / Que
l’an en cel graal li porte, / Sa vie sostient et conforte”, v. 6348-10). This
supernatural effect, albeit surprising, fits squarely with the Christian tradi-
tion: the bread or wine contained in the Grail (or chalice), fruits of a fertile
land, become respectively the body and blood of Christ, the token of eternal
salvation. This is what Christ promised to the Samaritan woman at the well
of Sicar (John 4:14) and put into action at the Last Supper with his disciples
(Luke 22:19-20). In the case that interests us, this is verified because “Such
a holy thing is the Grail, / and he [the King], who is a spirit, / lacks nothing
except the Host that comes in the Grail” (“Tant sainte chose est li Graals /
Et il, qui est esperitax, / C’autre chose ne li covient / Que l’oiste qui el graal
vient”. (v. 6351-54)). We cannot ignore a detail of the utmost importance,
the special metonymy of the container for the content. For the first time,
here, in the first of these lines, the holiness of the Grail is made clear: it
possesses a virtue similar to that of the Host it contains. Later—this is the
history of the myth—, the Host disappears and only the Grail appears.
In this way the Host held in the Grail not only has the virtue of giving
spiritual life; the text especially highlights its ability to sustain and strength-
en the physical life of the Fisher King’s father. And nonetheless, what hap-
pens to the son is exactly the opposite: the Fisher King’s powerlessness is
doubled in his inability to maintain the land (v. 3527), which is rendered
sterile (v. 1667 and 6165). Contrarily to what happens with the Grail (which
nourishes the Fisher King’s father), the Fisher King’s ailment is transferred
to his land, as if there were a cause and effect relationship between the
king’s physical health and the fertility of his kingdom. This movement, also
metonymic, from governing subject to governed object is not Christian but
Celtic.
Precisely one of the great attractive qualities of the story of the Grail is
the manner in which “the Celtic wonders, by which all the Arthurian novels
are inspired, fit in with Biblical readings” (Méla, ed. 1990, 11). This fusion
of both mythologies is unique in literature, to the point that Perceval’s ar-
rival, that is, the arrival of a Christian knight, momentarily reinforces the
Fisher King’s hopes. But Perceval’s sin of impiety, from when he abandoned

his mother, makes him incapable of asking the appropriate question at the
right time: the holy mission requires a holy man (“pour la «sainte chose» on
a besoin d’un «saint homme»”, Stanesco, ed. 2003, 47). His silence during
the procession symbolizes the powerlessness of the Christian knight who
has sinned, corresponding exactly to the powerlessness of the infirm king
(“mehaigniez” is the word that the cousin uses, v. 3525), unable to fend for
himself, to ride a horse and keep his lands. Perceval’s failure does not con-
clude the story, however: in the future, all knights will go forth in search of
the Grail. In the meantime, the land will remain a waste.
Now, for the unexpected evanescence of the myth, its fatal crisis. In The
Waste Land (1922), shortly after the First World War, T. S. Eliot deplores the
moral backdrop and the dissolution of spiritual values in the modern world.
In his notes, the poet claims to have largely based his poem on two books:
From Ritual to Romance (1920), by Jessie L. Weston, which connects pagan
and Christian elements of the Grail myth; and The Golden Bough (1st
ed.,
1890), by the anthropologist James Frazer. Of particular relevance to our
study are the poem’s references to the Fisher King—that Eliot associates
with a fake character from the Tarot—, to the Chapel Perilous—another
crucial moment in the Grail sequels—and, above all, the following verses
almost at the end of the poem:
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
(v, v. 422-24; 1978, 93).
The poet makes the reference explicit in his notes: “V. Weston: From
Ritual to Romance; chapter on the Fisher King”, 100). Seated by the river,
not on a boat across the river as in Chrétien de Troyes’ novel, the fisher
laments the sterility that lies behind him. Evoking the aridity of the waste
land is an obsession in this fifth and final part of the poem: “After the agony
in stony places” (v. 324), “Here is no water but only rock” (v. 331), “But
dry sterile thunder without rain” (v. 342), “But there is no water” (v. 358),
“stumbling in cracked earth” (v. 369). This manifestation of a desert pan-
orama stirs up our anxiety about the regeneration of the land, and about the
possibility to palliate the effects of physical and moral collapse.
The emphasis placed on the “Fisher King” and on the “Waste Land”
heightens, by contrast, the disappearance of the fundamental mythemes
of the Grail: the relic of Christ and the knightly adventure as an initiation
quest. Certainly the Grail could be camouflaged in “the red rock” of i. l 26:
“Come in under the shadow of this red rock”. In Wolfram von Eschenbach’s
Parzival the Templars guard “a rock that is called the Grail” (“Dieser Stein
ist Gral gennant”, ix, 469, v. 28; ed. 1842, vol. 2, 41). For Pierre Brunel there

28 Chapter One
is no doubt that “this motif […] is none other than the Grail that Wolfram
has imagined as a stone provided with marvelous powers” (1989, 43). Other
researchers, basing themselves on precisely these knights that guard it and
on the fact that this “little Stone” (“Lapis exilis”, ix, 460,v. 7) can resuscitate
one from ashes, maintain that the Rock-Grail is the Philosopher’s Stone
(Seigneuret, 21). It is very possible that Eliot had read Parzival in Jessie L.
Weston’s aforementioned version (London, David Nutt, 1894). Yet even if
accepting this reading and downplaying the absence of the color red in the
text of Parzival, it is no less certain that in Eliot’s poem “the red rock” has
any of the qualities of the original Grail, let alone any of its founding my-
themes (the relic of Christ, the initiation quest). All that are left are misfor-
tune, evoked by Nerval’s verse (“Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie”),
madness (“Hieronymo’s mad againe”), and a vague but inexplicable hope
of salvation (“Shantih shantih shantih”, the end of an Upanishad: the “peace
which passeth understanding”). That is, nothing of the Grail remains.
In the end, only one of the characters appears (the Fisher King), along
with his ruined land. In the Grail story, both the Fisher King and the waste
land were constitutive elements of the myth insofar as they were related to
the Grail, whose other constitutive elements, the sacredness of the Eucharist
and the initiation quest, conferred meaning to the king’s hope that the cho-
sen knight would help him to recover his health and lands. The Celtic my-
theme of the infertility of the land linked to the Fisher King’s bodily power-
lessness (“navrez et mehaigniez”) was indissolubly fused with the mytheme
of bodily strength linked to the spiritual power of the saintly king (“li sainz
hom”), by means of the mythemes of the life-giving Eucharist (the Grail)
and the liberating knight (Perceval). Once the original Grail and initiation
quest are eliminated, the story of the Waste Land forsakes its original source
and follows other paths: it conveys the experience of disintegration, the
need for self-abnegation, anxiety for the future. The absence of two of the
foundational mythemes transfigures the meaning of the whole—the myth of
regeneration becomes a myth of degeneration. Every disappearance of the
indispensable mythemes provokes the disappearance of the myth, which in
turn becomes unrecognizable: The Waste Land is not a rewriting of the Grail
myth. The myth could not survive the crisis.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) does not appear to be a rewrit-
ing of the Grail either. I am aware of Lydia Cooper’s thesis, that the novel
can be summarized as the story of a dying father who takes many measures
to prolong the life of his son, imagined and transformed into a “chalice”
in a post-apocalyptic world. In my opinion, the novel presents, perhaps, a
subversive representation of the myth: it places a signifier impervious to
any change (the boy) ahead of the meanings that are however susceptible to
change and evolution (the Grail, the knight, the Fisher King). The Road thus

denies the deeper meaning of the mythic invariants. As a consequence, it is
difficult to follow too closely the hypothetical identification of the boy with
the Grail (see Rebeca Gualberto’s article in this volume).
In both cases the transcendence of the reinterpreted myth is denied:
modern and postmodern representations make clear the impossibility of
transferring the original transcendence of myth to the contemporary world.
Certainly both texts reuse themes, mythemes, and even the structure of the
Grail myth to give form and generate meanings. Nonetheless, the original
myth has been broken down and rebuilt in such a way that the meaning
generated differs diametrically. No trace of the Grail myth remains and, oc-
casionally, seeking invariants at any price can be a hazard.
2.2. Lessons from the Analysis of Mythemes
1. Every myth is made up of a limited series of constitutive elements,
also known as invariants or mythemes. These elements do not necessarily
coincide with the plotline of the original myth, but rather give shape to its
mythic essence. These unvarying elements have a mythic core, that is, they
follow the logic of myth: they hold, in some way, a transcendent dimension.
2. No mytheme is exclusive to one single myth: different myths can
share a mytheme. Both Pygmalion and Frankenstein combine the vivifica-
tion and animation of an artifact, but they differ in attributing the authorship
of these two mythemes. The specific presence, relationship, and distribution
of the unvarying elements constitute a specific myth.
3. The relative modification or inversion of mythemes does not neces-
sarily imply the disappearance of the myth, only its distortion (the fallen an-
gel in the New Age and in contemporary film productions) or its subversion
(Pygmalion in Grau’s piece, the Trojan War in Giraudoux’s play, the Grail
in Rabelais, Gracq, Pierre Benoit, or Spielberg’s film). Instead, the absolute
modification or the suppression of one or more basic mythemes unfailingly
causes a mythic crisis of importance: these changes make the myth difficult
to recognize (Ariadne in Le Clézio’s novella), transform it (Frankenstein
compared to Pygmalion in Shelley’s novel), or eliminate it completely (the
Grail in Eliot’s poem).
4. We should add that there is one more fundamental element com-
mon to all processes explored: the names. The spelling, however, is not:
“Miguel/ Michael/Michel” for the angel, “Pigmalión/Pygmalion” for the
artist, “Graal/Grail/Grial/Gral” for the sacred vessel… One could also in-
clude “Fausto/Faust”. Perhaps Don Juan is the name that presents the high-
est number of variants (“Jean/John/Giovanni/João...”), including those of
his victims (“Ana/Anna/Anne…”). By contrast, the servant’s name is irrel-
evant: Catalinón (Tirso), Sganarelle (Molière), Leporello (Mozart), Ciutti

30 Chapter One
(Zorrilla), etc. The difference is significant: there is no myth of Catalinón,
or a myth of others like him. The servant—who is sometimes even called
“Gracioso”, in reference to the stock character he embodies (Lenau)—is
only a character typo, not of myth, although his presence proves to be, in the
majority of cases, indispensable for the Don Juan myth.
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