The Hero In Joseph Campbell's Monomyth

Lance Armstrong destroyed his reputation just like Braun by taking steroids. However, Armstrong denies his steroid use, but he has stopped fighting the United States Anti-Doping Agency accusations (“Peddling” par. 2). His defense in

“The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other men’s lives,” said Perculus (PR). You’re born, you live a little, and then you die. There is no simpler way to sum up life. Often times this is done through oral tales, paintings, and various other ways. For those whose lives were truly something great, something memorable, their stories are transcripted into writings. Whether these are simple biographies or symbolic fictional works, stories are often based on someone greater than the writer. These “epic heros” are protagonists that fulfill their potential of greatness through using their bravery, strength and

A number of prominent athletes have recently experienced a 'fall from grace,' because of the revelation that they used performance-enhancing drugs. Perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon is Lance Armstrong. In an advertisement for Nike that his former sponsor now no doubt regrets, Armstrong is shown asking the viewer "what am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day." Professional cycling is often cited as one of the sports in which doping is most endemic to its subculture, however a number of professional sports have been embroiled in drug scandals. Because of the many revelations about the number of baseball players who used steroids to get their record-breaking statistics, the 1990s are often called the 'steroid' era of baseball. The Olympic track and field star Marian Jones was stripped of her medals, after finally admitting to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (Lardon 2008). "Despite the health risks, and despite the regulating bodies' attempts to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely known to be rife. It hardly raises an eyebrow now when some famous athlete fails a dope test" (Savulescu, Foddy, & Clayton 2004).

Life is a precious gift, as you only get one chance to become your best self. In life everyone has hopes and dreams to find their calling to potentially make a difference in the world. In literature we are presented with an abundance of epic hero stories, referring to fictional or non-fictional characters that have made a difference in their world. These characters grant the reader with entertaining stories pertaining to historical or fictional events that reflect the hero’s journey to making a triumphant change. Joseph Campbell’s theory that every hero has a similar journey to becoming their best self commences with a call to an adventure. The call to adventure is the first and most important step in Joseph Campbell’s hero monomyth, “A hero with a Thousand Faces.”

Steroids have for years been associated with cheating. Though long ago it was common practice for athletes and bodybuilders to use them in order to have an edge in order to become the best, that perception has fallen away along with the careers of many famous athletes. Today the negative connotation associated with using steroids is stronger than ever before. The most recent scandal involved the allegations that world famous cyclist Lance Armstrong, a seven time consecutive winner of the Tour de France, used performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong later admitted to using them and was promptly banned from participating in cycling events as well as stripped of his awards.

The Hero’s Journey is a list of steps comprised by Joseph Campbell that describes the steps a hero must take on his adventure. The works of “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” by the Coen brothers and “The Odyssey” of Homer, embody and resemble the threshold of adventure in “The Hero’s Journey” where a hero crosses into an unknown world and carries out a challenging adventure in order to live freely by carrying out steps such as The Supreme Ordeal, The Road Back, and Returning with the Elixir.

Joseph Campbell’s lengthy twenty five step journey taken by all epic heroes such as Homer’s valiant king Odysseus from his classics The Iliad and The Odyssey, J. R. R. Tolkien's vigorous king Aragorn from the well know series, The Lord of the Rings, even George Lucas’s robust young Jedi Luke Skywalker from the dramatic Star Wars, shows the importance of perseverance in acquiring the status of epic hero, ultimately determining the path they followed. Although only heroes of myth and legend, the same principles that apply to their journey, apply to one’s everyday life. Even as infants we begin to learn the reward of perseverance. Standing up, taking a step, falling back down, then getting right back up and trying it again, it is only human nature

The movie “Lone Survivor” is an excellent example of Joseph Campbell’s idea of the “monomyth”, or more widely known as the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey outlines the steps a hero will likely take on their path to become and develop as a hero. It has three main parts; The Departure, The Initiation, and The Return, with all of them consisting of smaller parts of the journey. “Lone Survivor”, the movie, follows these steps very closely, almost mirroring the Hero’s Journey as Campbell wrote it. It is a very good example of the Hero’s Journey.

The common hero myth format that we see in films such as The Wonderful Wizards Of Oz, Stars Wars, and The Hobbit. The hero, also known as the protagonist, is in a world that they feel out of place. When they escape this world they venture into a new world that is odd. They must leave their parents, friends, family and home in the process. Once the task is complete the hero returns home, but things at home doesn’t remain the same. Joseph Campbell, the American mythological researcher, calls this process a monomyth in his article called “The Hero’s Journey.” Carl Jung referred to these hero myths as archetypical patterns. He says that “infantile attachments must die and a more mature and productive life” is born in place. It is the evolution of consciousness that babies start to experiences around five months of differentiation. Both Campbell and Jung believe that mythology is a symbolic utterance of patterns of development of our consciousness as human beings. This doesn’t mean that our lives are myths. It just means that myths are the emergence of truths and that it is based on experience. We all go through monomyth in our lives and that we can relate to heros displayed on big screens. Similar to the main function of hero myths, we all have a story and it involves discovering yourself and developing your individual

“The Hero’s Journey Defined” is an article compiled by Joseph Campbell (or Anthony Ubelhor), in which the characteristics of a hero and the outcomes of a journey are explained. Campbell explains that the journey taken by a hero, who may also be an underdog, may be long and treacherous, but most evidently exemplifies the growth of the hero himself. According to Campbell, the hero may sacrifice his life for someone or for the general welfare of others. Most heroes are called to make the odyssey because one that is superior to them, such as a god or a leader of his town. In the duration of a hero’s journey, the hero will be appointed to trek to a place in which he may sacrifice his life for someone or general welfare of people, and may

What is a hero? What do you think is the definition, to everyone it is different. The dictionary definition is “a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.” In the movie Hercules a child named Hercules was born to two immortal gods, Zeus and Athena. The child Hercules was snatched by Hades’s two minions, the minions gave the child a potion to turn him mortal. Hercules didn’t drink the whole potion leaving him with enormous strength. The rest of the story talks about his trials as a mortal with super strength and how he becomes a hero to many. This essay will explain the three different elements of Joseph Campbell’s Hero Journey Outline and how they relate to the popular movie Hercules.

This paper explores the novel Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh, who published the novel at the end of 2012. This novel is about Walsh’s journey as he follows Lance Armstrong and his life as a cyclist for 13 years as Lance deals with critics and skepticisms about his correlation with doping. Lance Armstrong was a glorified athlete who won many Tour de France titles after conquering testicular cancer. He was widely appreciated for cycling, but many people were questioning how he was able to make such a comeback after his cancer diagnosis. This book explores what happens from David Walsh’s point of view and the struggles he had to face as a Tour de France sports journalist: whether he should just celebrate Armstrong’s victories or question his usage of drugs. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief summary of the novel, and to reflect on the novel while still linking it to the issues and concepts of drugs and cheating in sports.

Joseph Campbell was born March 26, 1904, in New York, to a middle class, Roman Catholic family. Since a young age he was terribly fascinated by the Native yank cultures and mythologies. Growing up Joseph educated himself with the culture and story distended to incorporate the myths of the many cultures worldwide. Joseph Campbell believed that this was universal, and as a result it sprang from the common imagination of the collective unconscious. He went to date on enumerate the actual themes and options that different myths shared, and theorized, within the case of those heroic myths the quality plot that he referred to as the monomyth. Joseph takes the North American country through the understanding of how the Hero’s journey and the

In this project, our group of four was tasked to create a story following the Hero’s Journey monomyth in the format of a comic. The project we were assigned had these following requirements: ten steps of the journey, four archetypes, a five minute presentation, and a digital format of the project. The comic itself had to be divided into two pages per person with four panels per page. The story took a sci-fi setting with the monomyth pattern and was focused around the big ideas and themes we discussed in class regarding the steps of the journey.

When viewed holistically, one finds it evident that different paradigms are accepted throughout different cultures and set the foundation for how life should be conducted. Heroes in literature play an extensive role in the representation of such values. When delving into the monomyth, constructed by Joseph Campbell, one may witness the perspective and moral code of the hero ,and marvel at the means by which they overcome tribulation. Yet, ultimately, the ideals of the era are fortified through example. The literary works of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight convey both cultural and paradigm shifts in, one-dimensional views of humans to a more complex understanding, from the days when the Anglo-Saxons ruled England to the Late-Middle