The Hero’s Journey Notes
From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The hero myth is really about every human being. We are all heroes struggling to accomplish our adventure.
Theory of the Hero’s Journey
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Does not need to have all the elements in the journey
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Stages do not need to occur in order
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Campbell focuses on the male hero, but synthesizes the work of modern psychologists Carl Jung
(female focus), Sigmund Freud (male focus), and others
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Provides a useful framework for looking at stories
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All heroes undergo a common development cycle (same pattern) – monomyth
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Results from the collective consciousness shared by all human beings
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The cycle is related to rites of passage (e.g. birth, naming, adulthood, marriage, death)
Stages of The Hero’s Journey
Stage 1: Separation or Departure
1. Call to Adventure
“retreat from the world”
“destiny calls the hero”
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Voluntary or forced
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Accidental or unnoticed or unexpected
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Thrusts/enters the unknown world
2. Refusal of the Call
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Occasionally happens
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Reasons include self-preservation, fear, change is akin to death, wants to maintain the status
quo
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Can result in paralysis or enchantment
3. Supernatural Aid
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After accepting challenge - gathers provisions and weapons
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Encounters a protective figure – can be either benign or a tempter
4. Crossing the First Threshold
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Encounters a threshold guardian – may be good or evil
5. In the Belly of a Whale
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Hero is swallowed up – appears dead
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Because he has not properly appeased the guardian
Stage 2: Trials and Victories
1. The Road of Trials
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“show the hero’s worthiness”
Symbolic of psychological dangers of overcoming real problems in the real world
2. Meeting with the Goddess (or Temptress)
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Opposite sex archetype (a recurrent model or type) essential to the development of a
complete, mature personality (Jung’s anima/female)
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In heroine stories, look for Mother Atonement and male god or tempter
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Hero must ignore the temptations of human life; break bonds of humanity
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Can be good (helpful) or evil (destructive, dangerous temptress)
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Hero may resist her he must resist her to achieve maturity and his quest
3. Atonement with the Father
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Father tests hero’s worthiness – has both evil and benign qualities
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Father is archetypal enemy – tests hero to purge him of his childish ways “rites of passage”
4. Apotheosis
“illumination”
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Becomes god-like
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Meets spiritual guide and becomes enlightened
5. The Ultimate Boon
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Gains possession of object (symbolic of Truth)
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Object is often limitless or inextinguishable
Stage 3: Hero’s Return (can be any of these)
1. Refusal of Return – integrates into the new world
2. Magic Flight – leaves in haste, persuaded by forces
3. Rescued from Without – brought back by others from his own world
4. Crossing the Return Threshold – in leaving the unknown world, hero encounters signs he has
returned to a more ordinary, everyday world
5. Master of Two Worlds - has ability to pass back and forth between worlds
6. Freedom to Live – wise enough to lead an ordinary life – although wiser, more enlightened
***Not just a story framework – a spiritual quest/reality to understand our place in the universe. ***