Storytelling has been a part of human life since before the art of writing. Among the earliest of these are the myths, exploring the hidden secrets of the universe, "the world's creation and its eventual destruction, the nature of other worlds, and the source and eventual destination of human life" (Eliade 24). Myths have become important as more than stories told by long dead people. They still have important messages for those willing to listen. They tell us universal truths about human nature and out place in the world. In the different myths of the world, there can be found many stories detailing the hero's (or heroine's) descent to the underworld. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, mythologist Joseph Campbell identified detail the universal patterns and themes important in the tales of the hero's journey. One such story is the Greek tale of Orpheus, the extremely skilled musician who journeyed to Hades in order to retrieve his wife, Eurydice. Although he succeeds in rescuing her, he then loses her permanently when he disobeys the gods by turning around to make sure she is still there.
             It is important to realize that myths are not the only stories with these motifs. As an example, the Orpheus myth has a parallel in Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer. Using the Orpheus myth as a parallel not only allows the reader to identify with Conrad's narrator, but also illuminates and clarifies how Conrad's captain reaches self-fulfillment at the end of his quest. The quests in both stories also share another commonality, the monomyth-the three stages their quests take place in: a separation, an initiation, and finally the return.
             From the beginning, the similarities stand out. The ship in "The Secret Share" is described as "at the starting point of a long journey" (Conrad 273), and as being "very still in an immense stillness.... where nothing moved, and nothing lived" (273). These are b...