A Hero With A Thousand Faces By Joseph Campbell

The archetype of the Hero’s Journey holds a prevalent pattern in the works of “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, “A & P” by John Updike, and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. These works all follow the 17 stages of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth which are separated in three stages; separation, initiation, and return. The main characters have different characterizations; however, they all follow the basic structure of the Hero’s journey archetype. There are many similarities and differences between the stages that are shown through many context clues and literary devices in each work. The Hero’s Journey archetype expressed in these literary works follow a similar and direct narrative pattern.

Joseph Campbell’s term monomyth can be described as a hero’s journey. Many heroic characters follow the monomyth, no matter the time period or culture the literature was created in. The poem Beowulf is known to follow the adventure of the hero described in Campbell’s monomyth . The hero’s journey consists of three rites of passages: separation, initiation, and return. Beowulf endures each of these stages throughout the epic poem, so his journey does follow Campbell’s monomyth.

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.

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.

Two books can seem completely different from each other when judged by characteristics such as genre, plot, and theme. However, if people were to look at the books together and as a whole, they might notice one striking similarity between the two. That striking similarity is known as the hero’s journey. First observed and documented by Joseph Campbell, the hero’s journey is a concept in which heroes, or people who commit actions for the greater good, follow a three-step cycle known as departure, fulfillment, and return. At the first stage of the hero’s journey, the hero receives a call to an adventure that takes him from the comforts of his home. Next, at the most important stage of the hero’s journey, the hero begins to experience life

Upon analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's, "Harrison Bergeron", evidence suggests that the story imitates the basic structure of the monomyth. However, unlike the sequence and obvious events presented in a monomyth Vonnegut cleverly applies his own unique play on the iconic structure. What is to be noted first is the definition of amonomyth. Joseph Campbell defines the term, "monomyth", as the standard cycle of events that occur to which the hero endures during the progression of the story (kfjakhfakjf). This is a common format for various works of literature (hfakhfke). Important phases of the monomyth are as follows: 1)separation 2)initiation 3)return, all of which have countless endeavors within the main before the hero can venture on to the next facet (kjazkjfkajk). Thought there are multiple stages one can focus on, the one to consider meticulously is the last stage of the monomythic hero's journey: return.

In 1949, Joseph Campbell popularized his version of the monomyth, or the hero’s journey. In this version, there were seventeen stages which were split into three distinct categories including the Departure, the Initiation, and finally, the Return. Over the course of several years, there have been numerous versions of the hero’s journey; most of them derived from Joseph Campbell’s initial version. After watching “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, I was able to categorize the events in the movie into Christopher Vogler’s version of the hero’s journey which consists of twelve stages. The twelve stages are 1. The ordinary world, 2. The call to adventure, 3. Refusal of the call, 4. Meeting the master, 5. Crossing the threshold, 6. Tests, allies, and enemies, 7. Approaching the dragon’s den, 8. The ordeal, 9. Seizing the treasure, 10. The road back, 11. Resurrection, and finally, 12. Return with the treasure. However, modern film tends to stray from the typical hero’s journey more than the usual traditional epic poem.

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

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:

hero's journey is not solely “applicable to fiction but also to the journeys that everyone goes

In the twentieth century, Joseph Campbell started noticing something similar in all myth or legendary stories. He noticed that most of the hero stories have a very similar journey. He lays out monomyth in his book named the hero with a thousand faces, he found that every myth and legendary stories follow the same mode. The idea of monomyth have three sections such as separation, initiation and reward. In the movie X-Men, the hero has to go on a journey, he has to learn something and change. Wolverine has no desire to be a hero at the beginning, but he changed after the journey he has been through. This is similar to many legend stories, there have a lot of challenges which requires a death and restoration which is the basic needs for

Intro: “It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may very well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid.”-Joseph Campbell book The Hero with a Thousand Faces represents the idea that myths are people’s way of showing truths related to the way humans do things. They contain similarities from one culture to the next culture but they are all connected within the monomyth. Every myth in every culture follows the format of the monomyth. “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” has broken down the primary structure of human mythology

Monomyths all share a fundamental structure that can be divided into three stages and seventeen steps, however very few monomyths contain all seventeen steps. Departure, the first stage, begins when the hero acknowledges a world outside of his or her own, followed by receiving a quest from a guide, although the quest is often refused. However, the hero will eventually be forced to leave through some event or supernatural power. The second stage, initiation, tests the hero through numerous challenges in order to make the character more self-reliant and confident in their own abilities. Eventually, an authority figure will help the hero to better understand himself and ultimately the hero becomes a selfless person who has a better understanding of life. Return, the final stage, occurs after the quest is completed. To return home and complete the journey, the hero must re-cross the threshold and upon reaching home, the hero will understand the difference between his or her home and the new world (Campbell: 1968).

The universal monomyth contains four elements: romance and anti-romance, tragedy and comedy.10 These categories are evident in Old Testament stories: “In classical literature, and in the literature of the Old Testament itself, the existence of pregeneric [monomyth] plot structure is not only evident, but is intrinsically necessary to the development of that literature.”11Ruth, as a romance, displays the fulfillment of desire and, as a comedy, the upward movement from the unideal to the ideal. The book displays typical virtuous, beautiful ideals, villains that threaten the heroine’s ascent and final achievement of “the victory of fertility over the wasteland” of a comedy-romance.12 The final society reached at the end is the one that the “audience has recognized all along to be the proper and desirable state of

The film Spirited Away was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced in anime by Studio Ghibli in Tokyo, Japan, and released in 2001 (Sparknotes Editors). The film Spirited Away was very popular around the world and received the Best Animated Feature Film at the 75th Annual Academy Awards becoming the first anime film to win an Oscar (“Credits and Awards”). One of the reasons for its success is that it accurately represents the idea of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth or hero’s journey. The film has all of the elements of the monomyth: the call to adventure, a supernatural aid, a threshold into another world, mentor characters, the road of trials, an abyss and a revelation, a transformation, atonement, a crossing back over the threshold to the regular world, and apotheosis.