In Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”, the author maintains that in every form of storytelling, there are consistent traits of the Hero’s Journey. These traits may be found throughout ancient and modern heroic tales, both mythological and legendary. A Hero, by definition, is “a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2017). In order to be considered courageous, the hero must have an obstacle to overcome. In his book, Joseph Campbell supports his argument of how all heroes fit this characteristic in the context of the hero’s Departure, Initiation, and Return. In order for the Hero with a Thousand Faces to begin his journey, his 2000 feet …show more content…
Campbell calls this the “Initiation” phase. During the “Road of Trials” phase of the Journey, the Hero has to deal with “miraculous tests and ordeals” (Campbell, 1949, p. 81). The Hero has to gain some type of special help. This help is sometimes an object, like an amulet or a special sword, or sometimes a “power” that helps the Hero have abilities others don’t have. Campbell presents the example of the story of Psyche who was looking for her lover Cupid. Venus, Cupid’s mother, tried to prevent Psyche by giving her impossible tasks to perform. But every time she gave her a task, Psyche succeeded because of help she obtained from different sources. When Venus made her sort a lot of different small seeds, Psyche was helped by an “army of ants” (Campbell, 1949, p. 81). With each task came a different supernatural help so Psyche could overcome and pass each test. As the Hero, Psyche had to be willing to follow through on each ritualistic task Venus set before her. This is kind of like following the rules. If Psyche had not been willing to follow the rules of completing each task, she never would have been able to pass the Initiation part of the Hero’s Journey. Each helper also gave her the tools, knowledge, or abilities she needed to fulfill her goals. By being willing to listen and trust her helpers, Campbell shows how Psyche fits the …show more content…
Not all outcomes of the heroic journey are the same. Some end happily in victory, others end tragically, but all with a sense of transformation and completion. For Campbell, the Hero’s Return takes various forms. He reflects on some character’s “refusal to return”, such as King Muchukunda who, after awakening many years after his heroic deeds, found that he had grown beyond humanity (figuratively and literally) and withdrew away from mankind in order to continue his transformation (Campbell, 1949, pp. 167-169). One of the most interesting aspects of the Return of the Hero is the Hero’s discovery of the “Freedom to Live” (Campbell, 1949, p. 205). This aspect of the Hero’s Return deals with cycles of life and death and rebirth. Campbell details this element of the Hero’s Journey in the story of Taliesin. Originally a man named Gwion Bach, Taliesin crossed the first threshold after tasting “three drops from the poison kettle of inspiration”, was then eaten by a Hag and then reborn as an Infant, later to be found in a fish trap (Campbell, 1949, p. 206). Campbell presents the “Return” aspect of this Hero as one of constant evolution. Once reborn, Gwion Bach no longer retained the original fear of the “terrible had”, but instead was reborn to something greater (Campbell, 1949, p. 209). However, according to Campbell, the heroic cycle continues along a
After Campbell studied a lot of the great myths and realized this pattern, he published his findings in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Ever since then, authors have used “The Hero’s Journey” as an outline to tell their stories. “It is important to note that not all of these individual steps are present in every hero’s tale, nor is it important that they be in this exact order” (Vogler 20). The Hero with a Thousand Faces gives a sense of significance as it looks into the inner mind and soul. The author, Joseph Campbell, performs two extraordinary accomplishments: compelling his readers that myth and dream, those are the most effective and everlasting forces in life and a unification of mythology and psychoanalysis with a gripping narrative.
The first part in A Hero with a Thousand Faces that Campbell discusses of the Monomyth is the departure. Even though this deals with ancient myth, Allan in Tron is called to adventure just as Campbell describes in his text. Allan receives word that everyone who had level seven access is essentially being laid off work leading him to talk to Flynn starting the call to adventure. Campbell defines the call to adventure as, “A Blunder-Apparently the merest chance-reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood.” Next, Allan crosses into the threshold when he first enters ENCOM with Flynn and Lora when they enter the monumental, metal door beginning their mission. Crossing the threshold in the book can be seen as exiting ordinary life and entering into a supernatural world. Finally, Allan enters the belly of the whale as his doppelgänger Tron during t...
As the story comes to its conclusion, the hero has endured his hardships; he went from the one that started fights to the one that thought of what could make everything work. An ordinary person in an ordinary world faced his share of trials and tribulations to come out as a new person. Defining the hero myth—he struggled and still was able to triumph to his prize at the end ; individuals relish these type of stories, they can
To fully appreciate the significance of the plot one must fully understand the heroic journey. Joseph Campbell identified the stages of the heroic journey and explains how the movie adheres meticulously to these steps. For example, the first stage of the hero’s journey is the ordinary world (Campbell). At the beginning, the structure dictates that the author should portray the protagonist in their ordinary world, surrounded by ordinary things and doing ordinary tasks so that the author might introduce the reasons that the hero needs the journey in order to develop his or her character or improve his or her life (Vogler 35). The point of this portrayal is to show the audience what the protagonist’s life is currently like and to show what areas of his or her life are conflicted or incomplete. When the call to adventure occurs, the protagonist is swept away into another world, one that is full of adventure, danger, and opportunities to learn what needs to be learned. T...
Once the hero has returned, he must learn how to live in normal world again and must teach what he learned on his journeys. To explain this part of the journey, Campbell finishes the tale of Gwion Bach. He explained that due to his time on his journey, he received transcendental knowledge. With this knowledge, the hero was just one of many incarnations of the same soul, including Merlin, who looked after King Arthur (206-209). This transcendental knowledge of the “all” of a single individual explains that he is a part of everything and everything is a part of him, the hero and world are connected
“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness” (Campbell 1). These words by the scholar Joseph Campbell illustrates his philosophy of the hero’s journey, which contains the three criteria of a hero. From these three criteria, he describes a hero’s journey beginning with a departure, fulfillment, and a return which encompasses the hero’s sacrifice for the good of others. As a result, from Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, the characters could be applied to Campbell’s theory of heroism due to their life experiences. For example, the character Rose does not undergo a heroic journey. From Campbell’s theory of heroism, Rose contains the departure and the fulfillment of a hero; however, she lacks a concrete return Campbell describes as the moral objective to sacrifice for another person or idea.
Throughout the years, certain writers were able to set off a deep sympathetic resonance within readers by their usage of archetypal patterns. One of those patterns is known as the hero's journey, which Joseph Campbell gave an understandable idea of in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. According to his book, while comparing world's mythology, he found that no matter how far cultures are from each other, they will still have the same structure of hero's journey in their legends (Voytilla vii).
The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative that appears in novels, storytelling, myth, and religious ritual. It was first identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell in his book A Hero with Thousand Faces. Campbell also discussed this pattern in his interview to Bill Moyers which was later published as a book The Power of Myths. This pattern describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds. Campbell detailed many stages in the Hero’s Journey, but he also summarized the pattern in three fundamental phases: Separation, Ordeal, and Return that all heroes, in spite of their sex, age, culture, or religion, have to overcome in order to reach the goal. Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll, provides a good example of the Hero's Journey. This story describes the adventures of Alice, a young English girl, in Wonderland. Although she lacks some of the stages identified by Campbell, she still possesses many of them that are necessary for a Hero to be considered a Hero.
The overarching stages of these steps defines the important trilogy of the departure, the initiation, and the return of the hero in the spiritual, physical, and emotional changes that are experienced in this mythic cycle. Campbell’s insightful evaluation of the ten stages of the hero’s journey define the initial reluctance of the hero to follow his destiny, yet he or she slowly walks through the various obstacles and the awakening of consciousness through the death and rebirth of their identity. Finally, the return of hero to “home” reveals the liberation from previous prejudices and limitations of the mind, soul, and body that were present before they partook in the adventure. Surely, Campbell’s’ heroic cycle defines the overarching challenges of selfhood that the hero must endure to raise his or her consciousness to a higher level of understanding and realization. These are the important aspects of the ten stages of Campbell’s heroic journey that define the transformative nature of the journey and the hero’s initiation into the mysteries of life in this mythic theory of the heroic
Joseph Campbell defines a hero as “someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself ” (Moyers 1). The Hero’s Journey consists of three major parts: the separation, the initiation and the return. Throughout a character’s journey, they must complete a physical or spiritual deed. A physical deed involves performing a daunting and courageous act that preserves the well-being of another person. A spiritual deed calls for action that improves another individual’s state of mind. While fulfilling their journey, a hero must undergo a psychological change that involves experiencing a transformation from immaturity into independence and sophistication.Campbell states that these events are what ultimately guides a hero into completing
Campbell had originally outlined in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, who the hero is and the characteristics that go along with being the hero of the story. Typically the story contains a male hero-this is especially true due to the fact that most stories written long ago revolved around the male and Campbell wrote his book in 1949, a male dominated era- and according to Campbell, women represent ultimate wisdom and creation and no journey is necessary for a female. If and when a female goes on a quest, she is in search of her prince in the traditional setting. The hero will often times be of a lower economic sphere, but one that contains special powers or is of a higher birthright that goes unaware to the hero until he embarks on his journey. The hero is typically orphaned, or the parents are absent or uncaring to their child. Because t...
Myths have been a great example of the hero’s journey. Many heroes have journeys and trials to face throughout their life. Most of their journeys start out with their origin and end with the return. However, the hero’s role remains identical to every other hero. Most heroes like Gilgamesh has heroic traits because of the stages in the hero's journey. Gilgamesh is a man who can turn into a hero by changing himself, even when he has unusual circumstances surrounding his birth. Gilgamesh is viewed as a hero due to the stages of the hero's journey.
According to Webster’s dictionary a definition for a hero is “a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent” (Dictionary). The thing with heroes is that they are not all mythological or legendary figures; in fact, heroes can be almost anyone that hold our admiration towards them for whatever reason. Any person can be deemed a hero from the random person seen walking across the street to one of your relative, so eloquently it is there journey that person goes through that makes them become the hero. In Joseph Campbell’s book Hero with a Thousand Faces to be a hero you have to follow along the steps that Joseph Campbell created called Mystic Hero’s Journey. From the start of the first stage where the call to adventure begins it all,
According to The Power of Myth, one of the characteristics of hero is to encounter troubles. He explains, “The trials are designed to see to it that the intending hero sh...
Joseph Campbell was a well known mythology teacher who spent his whole life trying to understand the different types of stories that are told. To Campbell “all humans are involved in a struggle to accomplish the adventure of the hero in their own lives.” He made a list of stages that every hero goes through, and sums it up to three sections: separation (the departure), the initiation, and the return.