Rumpelstiltskin is initially a fairy-tale Mentor who helps the heroine by making good on her father's boast that she can spin straw into gold. But the price he demands for his gift is too high — he wants her baby. These stories teach us that not all Mentors are to be trusted, and that it's healthy to question a Mentor's motives. It's one way to distinguish good from bad advice.
Mentors sometimes disappoint the heroes who have admired them during apprenticeship. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart learns that his Mentor and role model, the noble Senator played by Claude Rains, is as crooked and cowardly as the rest of Congress.
Mentors, like parents, may have a hard time letting go of their charges. An overprotective Mentor can lead to a tragic situation. The character of Svengali from the novel Trilby is a chilling portrait of a Mentor who becomes so obsessed with his student that he dooms them both.
MENTOR-DRIVEN STORIES
Once in a while an entire story is built around a Mentor. Goodbye, Mr. Chips, the novel and film, is a whole story built on teaching. Mr. Chips is the Mentor of thousands of boys and the hero of the story, with his own series of Mentors.
The movie Barbarossa is a wise and funny look at a Mentor relationship sustained throughout the story. Its focus is the training of a country boy (Gary Busey) by a legendary Western desperado (Willie Nelson). The young man's learning is so complete that when the movie ends, he is ready to take Barbarossa's place as a larger-than-life folk hero.
MENTOR AS EVOLVED HERO
Mentors can be regarded as heroes who have become experienced enough to teach others. They have been down the Road of Heroes one or more times, and they have acquired knowledge and skill which can be passed on. The progression of images in the Tarot deck shows how a hero evolves to become a Mentor. A hero begins as a Fool and at various stages of the adventure rises through ranks of magician, warrior, messenger, conqueror, lover, thief, ruler, hermit, and so on. At last the hero becomes a Hierophant, a worker of miracles, a Mentor and guide to others, whose experience comes from surviving many rounds of the Hero's Journey.
Meeting with the Mentor CRITICAL INFLUENCE
Most often, teaching, training, and testing are only transient stages of a hero's progress, part of a larger picture. In many movies and stories the Wise Old Woman or Man is a passing influence on the hero. But the Mentor's brief appearance is critical to get the story past the blockades of doubt and fear. Mentors may appear only two or three times in a story. Glinda the Good Witch appears only three times in The Wizard of Or. 1 ) giving Dorothy the red shoes and a yellow path to follow,
2 ) intervening to blanket the sleep-inducing poppies with pure white snow, and
3 ) granting her wish to return home, with the help of the magic red shoes. In all three cases her function is to get the story unstuck by giving aid, advice, or magical equipment.
Mentors spring up in amazing variety and frequency because they are so useful to storytellers. They reflect the reality that we all have to learn the lessons of life from someone or something. Whether embodied as a person, a tradition, or a code of ethics, the energy of the archetype is present in almost every story, to get things rolling with gifts, encouragement, guidance, or wisdom.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Dorothy, like many heroes, encounters a series of Mentors of varying shades. She learns something from almost everyone she meets, and all the characters from whom she learns are in a sense Mentors.
Professor Marvel is the Mentor who reminds her that she is loved, and sends her on her quest for "home," a term that means far more than a Kansas farmhouse. Dorothy has to learn to feel at home in her own soul, and going back to face her problems is a step in that direction.
But the tornado flings her to Oz, where Dorothy encounters Glinda, the good witch, a new Mentor for a new land. Glinda acquaints her with the unfamiliar rules of Oz, gives her the magic gift of the ruby slippers, and points her on the way of the Yellow Brick Road, the golden Road of Heroes. She gives Dorothy a positive feminine role model to balance the negativity of the Wicked Witch.
The three magical figures that Dorothy meets along the way, a man of straw, a man of tin, and a talking lion, are allies and Mentors who teach her lessons about brains, heart, and
courage. They are different models of masculine energy that she must incorporate in building her own personality.
The Wizard himself is a Mentor, giving her a new Call to Adventure, the impossible mission of fetching the witch's broomstick. He challenges Dorothy to face her greatest fear — the hostile feminine energy of the Witch.
The little dog Toto is a Mentor; too, in a way. Acting entirely on instinct, he is her intuition, guiding her deeper into the adventure and back out again.
The concept of the Mentor archetype has many uses for the writer. In addition to offering a force that can propel the story forward and supply the hero with necessary motivation or equipment for the journey, Mentors can provide humor or deep, tragic relationships. Some stories don't need a special character solely dedicated to perform the functions of this archetype, but at some point in almost any story, the Mentor functions of helping the hero are performed by some character or force, temporarily wearing the mask of the Mentor.
When writers get stuck, they may seek the help of Mentors just as heroes do. They may consult writing teachers or seek inspiration from the works of great writers. They may delve deep inside themselves to the real sources of inspiration in the Self, the dwelling place of the Muses. The best Mentor advice may be so simple: Breathe. Hang in there. You're doing fine. You've got what it takes to handle any situation, somewhere inside you.
Writers should bear in mind that they are Mentors of a kind to their readers, shamans who travel to other worlds and bring back stories to heal their people. Like Mentors, they teach with their stories and give of their experience, passion, observation, and enthusiasm. Writers, like shamans and Mentors, provide metaphors by which people guide their lives — a most valuable gift and a grave responsibility for the writer.
It's often the energy of the Mentor archetype that gets a hero past fear and sends her to the brink of adventure, at the next stage of the Hero's Journey, the First Threshold.
QUESTIONING THE JOURNEY
1. Who or what is the Mentor in Fatal Attraction? Pretty Woman? The Silence oj the Lambs?
2. Think of three long-running TV series. Are there Mentors in these shows? What functions do these characters serve?
3. Is there a character in your story who is a full-blown Mentor? Do other characters wear the mask of the Mentor at some point?
4. Would it benefit the story to develop a Mentor character if there is none?
5. What Mentor functions can be found or developed in your story? Does your hero need a Mentor?
6. Does your hero have some inner code of ethics or model of behavior? Does your hero have a conscience and how does it manifest itself ?
7. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom portray a hero who has no apparent Mentor. He learns things from people along the way, but there is no special character set aside for that task. The third film in the series, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, introduces the character of Indy's father, played by Sean Connery. Is he a Mentor? Are all parents Mentors? Are yours? In your stories, what is the attitude of your hero to the Mentor energy?