The Hero’s Journey

aka THE MONOMYTHJoseph Campbell – The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Three Moves of Hero’s Journey

• DEPARTURE• INITIATION• RETURN

• Hero’s start in the Ordinary World – uneventful, boring; most heroes are considered odd, different (they are awkward, a god, a hobbit, have superhuman powers, got bit by a spider…)

Stage one: Call to Adventure• Removed from typical environment

– Some have reluctance to leave their friends/home– Discovery, event, or danger that starts this; they find an object, discover a

danger– Sometimes accident

Campbell states:• “A blunder—apparently the merest chance—reveals an unsuspected world,

and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces not rightly understood.”

• “But whether small or great, and no matter what the stage or grade of life, the call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration—a rite, or moment, or spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth.”

• “This first stage of the mythological journey …

signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown.”

• This new world “…a fateful region of both treasure and danger…a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky…a place of strangely fluid and polymophous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight.”

Stage Two: Refusal of the Quest• Only the hero can complete• Accept or deny?

– Many texts this semester will have characters who “refuse” their destinies

• “Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interests. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved.”

• “The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one’s own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and births, but as though one’s present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure.”

Stage Three: Supernatural Aid• After heroes accept the call, they enter the unknown• Supernatural means “above the laws of nature”

GUARDIANS• “For those who have not refused the call, the first encounter of the hero-

journey is with a protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass.”

• “One only has to know and trust, and the ageless guardians will appear”

• “What such a figure represents is the benign, protecting power of destiny.”

TALISMAN• Special items that help on the quest

ALLIES/HELPERS• Sidekicks, helpers, ppl who the hero will fail without

• Crossing the First Threshold—The hero eventually comes to the point of no return and must overcome whatever obstacles (including his/her own fear) that prevent him/her from going forward

• The Belly of the Whale—The hero enters the adventure proper, depicted as a region of powerfully transformative powers embodied in many (sometimes terrifying) forms

• The Road of Trials—The hero faces many tests of his/her courage, resilience, resourcefulness, and intelligence

• Meeting with the Goddess—The hero encounters a figure or situation that represents all that the ordinary man/woman can conceive of human happiness

Stage Four: Tests & the Supreme Ordeal

• Woman as Temptress—The hero discovers that mastery of the world can be a trap that prevents him/her from achieving full transformation

• Atonement with the Father—The hero must face his deepest fears, must embrace the very annihilation of body and ego, to complete the ultimate transformation

• Apotheosis—The hero’s highest self or divinity is revealed• The Ultimate Boon—The hero achieves the purpose of his

original quest which symbolize the achievement of ultimate transformation

Stage Five: Refusal/Inability to Return

• Either the hero doesn’t want to return or is held captive and cannot return

• The Magic Flight—The hero returns from region of his/her adventure with relative ease, signifying his/her accomplished transformation

• Rescue from Without—Prevented from returning to his/her home from the region of adventure, the hero must be rescued by others

Stage Six: Return Home• Crossing the Return Threshold—Upon leaving the region of

adventure, the hero again crosses the threshold—but now experiences it as a changed person

• Sometimes a reward is give: a kingdom, a princess, money, etc.• Sometimes there are other small challenges to overcome

before the end

Stage Seven: Master of Two Worlds/Restoring the World

• Master of Two Worlds—Now the hero has achieved ultimate transformation, he/she can live in this world without being contaminated by it

• Freedom to Live—The hero, having transcended his/her ego, can live without fear of anything