The Hero With A Thousand Faces

A hero is “a man (or occasionally a woman) of superhuman strength, courage, or ability, favored by the gods.” Based on this quote, found on “The Oxford English Dictionary Online,” one can assume that the hero would be a man based on the terms that are used. People often associate a man as being the almighty power in a situation. They are referred to as the hero. One does not often find a movie about superheroes with the hero being a woman. Gender should not define who is the better person. In order for one to be a hero, one must step up to the plate and destroy the monster behind the situation. If a woman is able to accomplish that task, then why can they not become a hero for society to cherish. Using The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, Alien can be seen to argue how women are equal to men through the stages of a hero’s journey.

In 1949, Joseph Campbell published his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” It details his theory of the “monomyth,” a theory that illustrates how many heroic mythological stories have similar outlines and archetypes. During his discussion of the second chapter of the monomyth, Campbell says that the monomyth can “serve as a general pattern for men and women” in their everyday lives (121). In many circumstances, comparisons can be made between normal situations throughout life and the monomyth. When a challenge of task is encountered in life, it can be analyzed under the three main stages of the monomyth: the departure, the initiation, and the return.

It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.” The 12 stages of this are ‘the ordinary world’, ‘the call to adventure’, ‘refusal of the call’, ‘meeting with the mentor’, ‘crossing the threshold’, ‘tests, allies and enemies’, ‘approach’, ‘the ordeal’, ‘the reward’, ‘the road back’, ‘the resurrection’ and finally ‘return with the

In stories, there is always a pattern that they all have in common. This certain pattern is known as the Hero’s Journey. There are varying descriptions of the Hero’s Journey steps but only the steps that are set by the teacher is used. These steps are the “The Call”, “Allies”, “Preparation”, “The Guardians of the Threshold”, “Crossing the Threshold”, “Road of Trials”, “Saving Experience”, “Transformation”, and ”Sharing the Gift”.This essay is explaining what the Hero’s Journey is in the book Whirligig by Paul Fleischman. The step that is coming up is the Call which is when the hero starts their journey.

Myth is a body of story that matters—the patterns present in mythology run deeply in the human psyche

The Hero’s Journey tells us the path that every hero takes in every story, and the conflicts that he faces throughout it. In the Ordinary World the hero is in comfort and tranquility until he is called upon to take this journey, into and unknown place called the Special World. The Special World is nothing like the Ordinary World, it has unstableness and that is where the hero will meet the villain which he must stop. In the Call Of The Adventure Stage, the hero will be presented with his challenge and will be told where to go and if he is willing to perform this journey. The Hero is left to choose if he has the courage to go to an extremely strange and unpredictable world. Next he will enter the Refusal Of The Call, here the hero feels frightened by the quest he must face and

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, an American mythological researcher, wrote a famous book entitled The Hero with a Thousand Faces In his lifelong research Campbell discovered many common patterns running through hero myths and stories from around the world. Years of research lead Campbell to discover several basic stages that almost every hero-quest goes through Many followers of Campbell have defined the stages of his mono-myth in various ways, sometimes supplying different names for certain stages. For this reason there are many different versions of the Hero’s Journey that retain the same basic elements. these steps are ;ordinary world : This step refers to the hero's normal life at the start of the story, before the adventure begins. Call to Adventure:

The hero journey beings with the Departure. The departure I the heros journey has five component. The call to adventure. The refusal of the call. The supernatural aid.

“...destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown”(Campbell 48). In the book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Campbell, an American mythologist, writer, and teacher, elaborated how each hero react to their call to adventure differently.. Each and everyone of us have our own inspiration in life. Some accepts their call but some refuse, the reason being is that they feel overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity that they are being exposed to. Deciding on what we want to pursue in life is really challenging. Knowing that we have to dedicate a lot of time and effort in order to achieve what we aim for in life and the high chance of failing at it is really intimidating. Growing up, I would always visit my grandmother in the hospital. She was always sick, so me and my cousins would always check up on her. We would play on the play area while we are waiting for her to wake up. On that same play area, there will always be this one girl on a wheelchair, who always looks so down. So I took the courage and ask her if she can play with us but unfortunately she said “I would love to but I really can’t.” I was so confused that time, until my mom told me that she has a heart condition which was why she can’t do things normal children experience.That moment made broke my heart and made me realize a lot of things. Children are meant to explore the world, make mistakes and discover their purpose in life. In regards to my career path, my call to adventure is to become a pediatrician or a pediatric nurse. Currently, I am refusing it due to the pressure coming from the people around me and the commitments it is associated with.

A tragedy is beginning with a problem that affects everyone, for example, the whole town or all the characters involved, the tragic hero must solve this problem and this results in his banishment or death. A comedy is defined as also beginning with a problem, but one of less significant importance. The characters try to solve the problem and the story ends with all the characters uniting in either a marriage of a party. Although these two genres are seen as being complete opposites of each other, through further analysis one can gather that though they are different certain similarities can also be seen.

Superman or Superwoman; Equality For All, Joseph Campbell “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” and The Movie “Alien”

From the mountains of Ithaca to the black lands of Mordor, the adventures of the hero are linked by an archetypal pattern that supersedes the temporal gaps between each story’s creation. In Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he defines the stages of this model, which he christens “the monomyth,” and elaborates on its value as a tool for connecting the ancient to the modern. The three main stages—the hero’s departure, initiation, and return—are each divided into numerous subcategories that detail the specifics of the hero’s journey through each level of the myth. However, the beauty of the monomyth is that very few stories fit the pattern word for word, often excluding a subcategory or deviating from the chronology of the standard schematic. This is true of both “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” a Mesopotamian epic relating the journey of a king to vanquish mortality, and “Setne Khamwas and Naneferkaptah,” an Egyptian tale of the magic and enchantment that warns against unbridled ambition. By examining the way Campbell’s monomyth manifests itself in each of these tales, it is possible to, not only unearth details about the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, but also the ways in which their values and beliefs both concur and clash with one another. Because of the complexity of Campbell’s’ model, I will focus on the first stage of the monomyth, departure, and how each of its six components emerge within the narratives of “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and “Setne Khamwas

Mythos, the Greek word for myth means story, appertain to colorful tales that enlightens about the origins of humans and the universe. Myths, as amazing as it sounds, is also a cause for birth of new religions, where and how they originated. Many cultures have myths about how the gods and goddesses came to be, even elucidating the origin of humanity and its traditions. Even ideas about how this world of ours came to existence have many myths, creation myths behind it, disparate in every culture and society, which demonstrates a view on its role in the world. Mythology is simply the study of the myth. There are many psychological theories and meanings that explicate mythology. The most recurrent belief about the psychological value of myth is that myths emblematize contrasting elements of our own psyches or souls. The psychoanalytical frames of reference on myths have indisputably been ineluctable. Myths were and still are progressively seen as expressions of desideratum in the human psyche. But the big question is, what is the beneficence of mythology towards the amelioration of society? If there are myths to decipher or exhibit certain things, character or situations, there also are science and technology, which accommodate every explanation needed to understand each of those things. Many go to science for such interpretation, which conveys the impression of taking care of the signification behind all those natural phenomena,

Comedy was a popular type of play in Ancient Greece, only second to Tragedy. These types were described in many details in Poetics, by Aristotle. He expressed that a comedy is “an imitation of inferior people - not, however, with respect to every kind of defect: the laughable is a species of what is disgraceful. The laughable is an error or disgrace that does not involve pain or destruction” (Aristotle 9). In plainer words, Aristotle is saying that as long as no one becomes hurt, it can be funny, and that everyday misfortune is, or can be humorous. Comedies are also plays that deal with common folk, and common events. (Simpson). Tragedy is almost the exact opposite.