A Journey in The Dark Cold Inner Self
In the early part of the 20th century, a great writer named Joseph Campbell wrote a book, called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He noticed that in every myth and legend he studied, heroines and heroes from every time-period were taking the same journey, that’s what he called the hero’s journey. Robert Service’s famous poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee, chronicles the expedition undertaken “by the men who moil for gold” (Service v.2), Sam McGee and our speaker. The speaker tells us a story about his adventure in the cold Arctic, where Sam McGee freezes to death on the trail. The speaker promises to fulfill Sam’s last request to cremate his remains. Struggling to survive the harsh winter, he follows the
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He travels through “that land of death” (Service v.29) which in many ways liken the underworld, carrying his dead friend’s grinning, frozen body. The cold “stabbed like a driven nail” (Service v.14) eats away at our hero, similar to the way it was eating Sam, taking his will to live and therefore taking his life. The hero is traveling through the frigid Arctic where “the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe” (Service v.18), “The Northern Lights have seen queer sights” (Service v.5) and “while the huskies, round in a ring, howled out their woes to the homeless snows” (Service v.35-36). These powerful lines depict how amazing and exotic the Canadian landscape really is, but also, at the same time, how easily can someone feel lonely and empty in this place. The speaker gives us an image of the long, cold nights, surrounded by the sad howls of the sled dogs. The corpse which “seemed to heavy and heavier grow” (Service v.36) and “it hearkened with a grin” (Service v.39) was a creepy and awful company that our speaker