The Hero's Journey In The Monomyth By Joseph Campbell

Do you ever wonder if your favorite movie follows the hero's journey? You might ask yourself what even is the hero’s journey. Well the Hero’s journey was made by Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was born March 26 1904 and died October 30 1987. There’s 12 stages for the hero’s journey,which does not mean that all movies follow them,but most do. For example, one movie that follows the hero’s journey is Maleficent. In the movie maleficent, Maleficent displays the hero’s journey when Stefan cuts her wings, then later on she meets Diaval, and a few years later she gets to know Aurora and got to see her more than a monster.

The book that I read for this summer was called “The Giver”. It is about a young, eleven year old boy named Jonas who lives a life of not being told the whole truth. As he turns a year older Jonas receives the responsibility of The Giver. When he goes through his training he learns about the past, and with learning about the past comes the truth. Through his whole life, Jonas and the people from the town which he lives, have been sheltered from the truth. No one truly knows the full story, except for The Giver. In this essay I am going to analyze the concept of truth to get a full understanding of the book.

During the course of this World Literature class, several stories have been covered that accurately describe Joseph Campbell's mono-myth, or basic pattern found in narratives from every corner of the world. The Hero's Journey in it's entirety has seventeen stages or steps, but if boiled down can be described in three; the departure, the initiation, and the return (Monomyth Cycle). Each stage has several steps, but the cycle describes the hero starting in his initial state, encountering something to change him, and this his return as a changed person. To further explain this concept, there are a few stories covered in this class that can be used.

Countless cultures and religions gather around campfires and even hold ceremonies to hear a good hero story. But little do they know that these traditional stories that they are oh so eager to listen to, are all alike someway, somehow. All heroes in all cultures, dating from the earliest hero-story written, miraculously follow a sequence of events called a mononmyth/heroes Journey. The ineffable spectacle of the mononmyth is that despite the thousands of miles between ancient civilizations it was subconsciously present in the psychology of all the hero-writers. Joseph Campbell, an established psychologist stated his identification of the monomyth in his book, A Hero with a Thousand Faces. But, Campbell not only explained the monomyth in great detail, but he also elaborated into the psychology of humans. He did this by elucidating the exact steps in every hero’s journey, and providing factual proof. The initial belief is that no matter what the circumstance is, No matter past or present, man or woman, the heroes all have the same initiation. Here Campbell states that, “Whether hero ridiculous or sublime, Greek

Jonas is just another member of his community. He spends his life following the rules that his community has imposed him. In all his life, he has blindly followed the rules and has never questioned them. For that reason, it comes to a shock when he receives new instructions that go against everything he has been taught:

In almost any story, whether novel or poem, lies a hero. Depending on the path, a variety of archetypes usually accompany the hero. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines “archetype” as “the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies.” Joseph Campbell’s A Hero With A Thousand Faces introduces the common archetypes often found in various pieces of literature, explaining “The parallels will be immediately apparent; and these will develop a vast and amazingly constant statement of the basic truths by which man has lived throughout the millenniums of his residence on the planet,” in his preface to the 1949 edition. To summarize, after learning of the different archetypes found in a story, one

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 normally begins his journey for a number of different reasons including the fight for a certain cause, the sacrifices for a beloved person, or a call to find something that was lost inside the hero himself. The call to adventure is a key event in a hero’s journey because it ignites the passion in the hero to fight for what he believes in and begin

Long ago, author Joseph Campbell created the “monomyth,” which is a universal template for stories that follow the adventures of a hero. This template has been recognized in seemingly unlimited stories, epics/myths, and films. It chronicles the trials and the successes of a hero, and it has been a facet in Stories from the beginning of time. Ancient myths and legends, stretching as far back as Gilgamesh, have conformed to the steps of the “monomyth” in one way or another. Fast forward to the twenty-first century, and the hero’s journey is still as prevalent as ever. In fact, it has pushed the bounds of literature, and is even seen today within stories told through social media. No longer are our heroes restricted to warriors of battle and combat,

A key to understanding his writing, says author Tom Robbins, is a knowledge of Greek myth. A particular influence on him is the life and work of Joseph Campbell, author of several books on mythology (Hoyser and Stookey 9). Campbell, in turn, owes influence to the insights of analytic psychologist Carl Jung. Jung recognized the patterns within myths --- throughout the world and across all cultures -- of characters, situations, and events, and identified these recurring images as archetypes (Harris and Platzner 40). Campbell

Countless quest narratives – ranging from modern texts all the way back to ancient texts – have all conformed to a certain archetypal structure. Christopher Vogler writes:

The Hero’s journey, or in its more correct terminology the Monomyth is an object from the area of comparative mythology. Its definition in the most basic of forms, it is a pattern or outline that is used in storytelling, usually the myth. This pattern is found in many famous pieces from all around the world. In the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces from 1949 by author Joseph Campbell, this pattern is described in detail. Campbell describes that numerous myths from different times and areas of the world seem to share an identical structure in their storytelling. He summarized this with a well-known quote found at the intro of his book:

Lois Lowry’s novel, The Giver, offers a thought provoking, well written story, because it changes the perspective of anyone who dares to read it to. Lowry places her novel, at some point in the future when mankind has gone away with changes and choices in life. She forces readers appreciate, or at least re-think the world they live in today. Her novel presents a fully human created environment where people have successfully blocked out conflict, grief, and individuality. Each person follows the same routine every day. Failure comply with standards, to be different, means death. Jonas, the main character, finds himself trapped in this world.

Multiple times you have read or seen a story and possibly recognized a certain repetition within the plot, like an encounter of the one character that helps the hero throughout the story that helps the hero through tests whether mental or physical. Or perhaps the ending, where the hero returns significantly transformed after their journey. Then like in multiple stories, chances are you have come across the “Monomyth” theory by Joseph Campbell. The Monomyth theory can be seen in hundreds of thousands of story plots, thus the title of Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The Monomyth theory applies to many archetypes in these stories, contributing to their purpose, meaning, and effect to the Hero's Journey. One archetype that

In his renowned work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell defined the essential stages of the Heroic Journey, using examples from a wide range of myths and stories. His objective was not only to establish the framework for hero tales, but also to convey why these elements of the monomyth prevail in so many different works. Campbell’s view states that “the hero myth is really written about every human being: we are all heroes struggling to accomplish our adventure” (Whomsley, 185). From this perspective, it seems justified that these patterns continue to appear in so many stories adventure and heroism; we all want our