Hero's Journey

What do we mean by Myth?

A myth is a sacred narrative explaining aspects of human life and the world we live in. Most cultures, for instance, from ancient times through the present, have creation stories which tell how the world came to be. These stories are sacred in more than one respect: they are sacred in that they frequently deal with deities and divine mysteries, and they are sacred in that they are worthy of reverence and respect.

In modern usage, the word myth has acquired an additional, negative meaning – we often hear the word used to denote falsehood, as in That’s just a myth. This use of the word is ironic because myth – in the sense in which we are discussing it here, as a sacred narrative – is something that transcends any assessment of true/false. Myths speak to us in symbolic and metaphoric language. The stories are meaningful and poetic, rich in truths about human life.

The Monomyth of the Hero

In the course of analyzing the myths and lore of various world cultures, mythologist Joseph Campbell saw an underlying similarity throughout the stories, and in fact perceived and articulated a storyline-structure he believed to be universal for hero-myths. This storyline he called the monomyth.

Here is an outline of the basic structure of the universal hero’s monomyth, as Campbell discussed it in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

I. Departure
- The Call to Adventure
- Refusal of the Call
- Supernatural Aid
- The Crossing of the First Threshold
- The Belly of the Whale

II. Initiation
- The Road of Trials
- The Meeting with the Goddess
- Woman as the Temptress
- Atonement with the Father
- Apotheosis
- The Ultimate Boon

III. Return
- Refusal of the Return
- The Magic Flight
- Rescue from Without
- The Crossing of the Return Threshold
- Master of the Two Worlds
- Freedom to Live

1. The Departure:

The Ordinary World

The hero starts at home. Even if she is not happy here, she is at least able to comprehend the world around her. (It is a world of stasis. Nothing is changing.)

The Call to Adventure

The hero is compelled to leave her world. A herald appears that gives her purpose and a sense of the quest ahead.

Refusal of the Call

The hero resists leaving (or is stopped by someone else). She sees what needs to be done, but she's reluctant to do it.

Supernatural Aid

The hero encounters a Mentor who inspires the hero to take action. The Mentor trains and prepares her for the journey. (Sometimes the Mentor will give the hero a magical token to help them such as an amulet or advice.)

Crossing the First Threshold

The hero overcomes some obstacle between her world and the world outside. She leaves her old life behind and starts her quest.

1. The Initiation:

The Road of Trials

The hero has a series of adventures which lead her progressively closer to the objective of the quest. The hero finds friends and allies (and enemies)

The Ordeal (The Belly of the Whale):

The hero alone has a confrontation with her nemesis. During this fight, she is transformed in some major way (see apotheosis.)

The Ultimate Boon (Seizing the Sword):

The hero completes her quest and acquires the prize.

1. The Return:

Refusal of the Return:

Now that she's succeeded, the hero wants to stay in paradise and not go back home;

OR

The hero wants to get back to the ordinary world as quickly and as safely as possible.

Experiencing Death:

The hero experiences death: the death of herself, the death of a friend, the loss of the previously-acquired boon, or the death of an idea(l).

Resurrection:

The hero comes back to life! The hero rededicates herself to the task at hand and is triumphant—usually against the shadow figure that has been after her during her journey. (THIS is what audiences pay their money to experience: facing death and then being reborn)

Master of Two Worlds (Return with the Elixir):

The hero returns triumphant and shares her boon with the public.

In 1949 Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) made a big splash in the field of mythology with his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This book built on the pioneering work of German anthropologist Adolph Bastian (1826-1905), who first proposed the idea that myths from all over the world seem to be built from the same "elementary ideas." Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) named these elementary ideas "archetypes," which he believed to be the building blocks not only of the unconscious mind, but of a collective unconscious. In other words, Jung believed that everyone in the world is born with the same basic subconscious model of what a "hero" is, or a "mentor" or a "quest," and that's why people who don't even speak the same language can enjoy the same stories.

Jung developed his idea of archetypes mostly as a way of finding meaning within the dreams and visions of the mentally ill: if a person believes they are being followed by a giant apple pie, it's difficult to make sense of how to help them. But if the giant apple pie can be understood to represent that person's shadow, the embodiment of all their fears, then the psychotherapist can help guide them through that fear, just as Yoda guided Luke on Dagoba. If you think of a person as a computer and our bodies as "hardware," language and culture seem to be the "software." Deeper still, and apparently common to all homo sapians, is a sort of built-in "operating system" which interprets the world by sorting people, places, things and experiences into archetypes.

Campbell's contribution was to take this idea of archetypes and use it to map out the common underlying structure behind religion and myth. He proposed this idea in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which provides examples from cultures throughout history and all over the world. Campbell eloquently demonstrates that all stories are expressions of the same story-pattern, which he named the "Hero's Journey," or the "monomyth." This sounds like a simple idea, but it suggests an incredible ramification, which Campbell summed up with his adage "All religions are true, but none are literal." That is, he concluded that all religions are really containers for the same essential truth, and the trick is to avoid mistaking the wrappings for the diamond.

Lucas had already written two drafts of Star Wars when he rediscovered Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces in 1975 (having read it years before in college). This blueprint for "The Hero's Journey" gave Lucas the focus he needed to draw his sprawling imaginary universe into a single story.

Note that the Wachowski Brothers' wonderful film The Matrix is carefully built on the same blueprint:

Campbell	Star Wars	The Matrix
I: Departure
The call to adventure	Princess Leia's message	"Follow the white rabbit"
Refusal of the call	Must help with the harvest	Neo won't climb out window
Supernatural aid	Obi-wan rescues Luke from sandpeople	Trinity extracts the "bug" from Neo
Crossing the first threshold	Escaping Tatooine	Neo is taken out of the Matrix for the first time
The belly of the whale	Trash compactor	Torture room
II: Initiation
The road of trials	Lightsaber practice	Sparring with Morpheus
The meeting with the goddess	Princess Leia (wears white, in earlier scripts was a "sister" of a mystic order)	The Oracle
Temptation away from the true path1	Luke is tempted by the Dark Side	Cypher (the failed messiah) is tempted by the world of comfortable illusions
Atonement with the Father	Darth and Luke reconcile	Neo rescues and comes to agree (that he's The One) with his father-figure, Morpheus
Apotheosis (becoming god-like)	Luke becomes a Jedi	Neo becomes The One
The ultimate boon	Death Star destroyed	Humanity's salvation now within reach
III: Return
Refusal of the return	"Luke, come on!" Luke wants to stay to avenge Obi-Wan	Neo fights agent instead of running
The magic flight	Millennium Falcon	"Jacking in"
Rescue from without	Han saves Luke from Darth	Trinity saves Neo from agents
Crossing the return threshold	Millennium Falcon destroys pursuing TIE fighters	Neo fights Agent Smith
Master of the two worlds	Victory ceremony	Neo's declares victory over machines in final phone call
Freedom to live	Rebellion is victorious over Empire	Humans are victorious over machines
Common Mythic Elements
Two Worlds (mundane and special)	Planetside vs. The Death Star	Reality vs. The Matrix
The Mentor	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Morpheus
The Oracle	Yoda	The Oracle
The Prophecy	Luke will overthrow the Emperor	Morpheus will find (and Trinity will fall for) "The One"
Failed Hero	Biggs	In an early version of the script, Morpheus once believed that Cypher was "The One"
Wearing Enemy's Skin	Luke and Han wear stormtrooper outfits	Neo jumps into agent's skin
Shapeshifter (the Hero isn't sure if he can trust this character)	Han Solo	Cypher
Animal familiar	R2-D2, Chewbacca	N/A
Chasing a lone animal into the enchanted wood (the animal usually gets away)	Luke follows R2 into the Jundland Wastes; The Millennium Falcon follows a lone TIE fighter into range of the Death Star	Neo "follows the white rabbit" to the nightclub where he meets Trinity