The Middle of the Forest
An Exploration of Myth
A Myth in Action
...he endured the shame
of being sent home
a living trophy
to the blood and death
of too many friends.
A Myth in Action: The Heroic Life of Audie Murphy
by Ann Levingston Joiner
relates the life of a Texas farmboy who enlisted in
the Army in 1942. By the end of WWII, 5‘ 6“ and
barely twenty, he had been field-commissioned
and had won more medals for valor than any sol-
dier in American history. Coming home a legend,
he spentthe rest of his life portraying heroes in
Hollywood films. He died tragically at 45. His story
echoes those of mythological heroes described by
comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell
(Hero with a Thousand Faces), psychologist Rollo May
(The Cry for Myth) and others. Heroes' lives follow an
“archetypal” pattern, from Homer’s Perseus through
the Arthurian Percival,to Luke Skywalker - and Audie Murphy.
