Premium Essay

Summary Of The Hero's Journey

Submitted By
Words 367
Pages 2
“The Hero’s Journey” is an article written by Joseph Campbell published in 1949. The Hero's Journey is a narrative pattern that appears in an assortment of myths, scholarly works, and films. The Hero’s Journey can be broken down into different sections, each of which encompasses a significant stage in the hero’s life. The general pattern is that the hero goes on an adventure, faces a significant challenge and emerges victorious, and comes home a changed individual. The first big idea from the article is Departure, where the hero leaves his comfortable and commonplace world and ventures into the darkness of the unknown. The first six stages of the Journey reveal departure because in each stage it leads the hero to act upon his call to adventure

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Summary Of The Novel 'The Hero's Journey'

...Key Passage Page How is this passage critical to the development of the theme/character/mood/setting/conflict? Respond to the passage on a personal note. “It was too transitory, all those doorways and dark spaces between wings, the missing ceiling. It was more like a terminal, he thought, a train station or an airport, everyone passing quickly through.” 5 This passage helps develop the novel’s recurring theme of main characters traveling. Firstly, it foreshadows what life will be like after the Georgia Flu. “Everyone passing quickly through” may foreshadow many people’s quick deaths, “passing through” life, but it also may foreshadow the Traveling Symphony’s centrality in the novel. The Traveling Symphony never stays very long in any one place, and they spend most of their time traveling and adjusting to new communities. The theme of travel and constant departure also relates to Miranda and Arthur’s lives - both physically and metaphorically. Both moved from Delano Island to Toronto, and later moved to live in California. Arthur also constantly transitions between his romantic relationships, having been married thrice. His wives play transitory roles in his life, and are never permanent. In this novel, most of the main characters pass quickly through, and few things are permanent. This passage is especially fitting considering Arthur’s heart attack marks the transition between normal life and post-apocalyptic society. This is also the first time people begin to realize their...

Words: 1917 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Hercules Hero's Journey

...Did you know that almost every hero's journey has 3 parts. They have the departure, the initiation, and the return. The hero Hercules went through all these phases during his journey. In summary of the movie Hercules. He is taken from olympus and has his powers taken away making him mortal. He then grows up realizing he has super strength because some of the god powers still lingered and he sets out to become a god again by becoming a true hero. He does this by defeating hades and making sure everyone is safe. Hercules, through his journey shows all the phases that happens in a hero's journey. In the departure phase of a hero's journeys as outlined by joseph campbell, the hero is given his call to adventure in his ordinary world. Usually the...

Words: 563 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Odyssey Research Paper

...Task Essay Outline: The Hero’s Journey. Directions: Use your completed close-reading charts on “The Hero’s Adventure” and “The Hero’s Journey,” as well as your annotations from “The Odyssey” to complete this outline for your research simulation essay. 10 point classwork grade Introduction Hook Statement - Engage the reader with a compelling quote or question related to the topic How does the Hero’s journey structure contribute to the development of Odysseus’ character as an epic hero and aligns with his journey? Background Information - Provide necessary context about the topic and its significance In the Odyssey, Odysseus goes through many phases/challenges of which align with the “stages” in the Hero’s Journey. These...

Words: 1060 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Hero Journey

...All hero’s follow a similar series of events or steps along their individual hero journey. Not all Hero’s follow all the same steps, or even in the same order. Westley’s Hero Journey in “The Princess Bride”, is a very good example of a Campbell’s Hero Journey outline (The Princess Bride) (“Hero’s Journey: Summary”). The Hero’s journey is divided into three sections; the departure, the initiation, and the return. The first section, the departure, starts off with the hero’s call to adventure. For Westley, his call to adventure was when he left the farm to travel on a ship and find his fortune. He wants to be a suitable husband for Buttercup. He wants be able to provide for her in the fashion that she is accustomed to and he thinks that she deserves to live in. Campbell’s second step is the refusal of the call to adventure. Westley wanting to marry Buttercup and provide everything her heart desires does not refuse his call to adventure. Once the hero has committed to his quest, his or her supernatural aid, guide, or magical helper in unveiled. Westley in a roundabout way completes this step by becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts. Becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts allowed him to create an alter ego raising him up from being a poor farm boy to a legendary feared Pirate and ultimately allowing him to amass a small fortune. Westley completes Campbell’s next step, the crossing of the first threshold, when he left the farm to set sail on the ship. Although this is out of order for Campbell’s...

Words: 979 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Hercules: A Greek Hero's Journey

...The story of Hercules and the twelve labors is a very popular Greek myth which depicts Hercules's struggles as he attempts to complete feats so difficult, that they were nearly impossible. These feats were called the Twelve Labors. These perils took Hercules twelve years to complete, and when he did, he emerged as Greece’s greatest hero. As Hercules goes through these trials, he goes through many steps of the Hero’s Journey. As a young child, Hercules was always different. He was much stronger than most infants. His mother was the goddess Hera, while his father was a mortal man making Hercules a Demigod, a mortal born from a God or Goddess and a mortal. Throughout his early childhood, Hera sent many dangerous beasts to murder baby Hercules so she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of this baby, who had many times, accidently hurt his mother with his strength. This is Hercules's unusual childhood, showing the first part of the hero’s journey. Throughout his young adult life, Hercules had many milestones including getting married and having children. Soon, Hera came back and decided to torture Hercules until he went crazy. Hera succeed in this and Hercules, in a blind rage, murdered his wife and children. After he came out from his ‘temporary insanity’ Hercules saw the full scope of what he had done....

Words: 1010 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Odyssey

...A Modern Hero’s Journey: A Short Play due dates: brainstorming due 4/7 Dr. Harrison cover letter, map, setting, character list due 4/11 English 1h formal essay, inc. WC page due 4/16 Spring 2014 You, or you and one partner, are Hollywood screenwriters who have a brilliant idea for a movie about a modern hero’s journey, modeled on Odysseus’s journey, and given a structure by Joseph Campbell: in other words, you will be showing your hero’s origin and his separation (you’ll have to create your own back story since we don’t observe Odysseus’s origin in The Odyssey), and his initiation and return to his homeland. Your job is to make the story your own by creating your own character names, setting, and back story, and then modeling your journey on the specific encounters Odysseus has, as he makes his way home. You will pitch your story to me (I’m really a famous Hollywood director—my stage name is dr.h--traveling incognito as a San Jose high school English teacher): For me to consider your story and launch you to stardom, your pitch, uploaded to your website(s) must accomplish all of the following: Cover letter: please find a template for cover letters, or create your own, to address me and give me a brief one-paragraph pitch: what is your story and why should I want to read on? Brainstorming: During class time, you will create a googledoc in which you (or you and your partner) brainstorm each of the following. Upload this googledoc to your website(s)...

Words: 891 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Monomyth

...encyclopedia "The Hero's Journey" redirects here. For other uses, see The Hero's Journey (disambiguation). The twelve stages of the hero's journey monomyth following the summary by Christopher Vogler (originally compiled in 1985 as a Disney studio memo): 1. TheOrdinary World, 2. The Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal of the Call, 4. Meeting with the Mentor, 5. Crossing theThreshold to the "special world", 6. Tests, Allies and Enemies, 7. Approach to the Innermost Cave, 8. The Ordeal, 9. Reward, 10. The Road Back, 11. The Resurrection, 12. Return with the Elixir. In narratology and comparative mythology, the monomyth, or the hero's journey, is the common template of a broad category of tales that involve a hero who goes on anadventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed.[1] The concept was introduced by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), who described the basic narrative pattern as follows: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[2] Campbell and other scholars, such as Erich Neumann, describe narratives of Gautama Buddha, Moses, and Christ in terms of the monomyth. Critics argue that the concept is too broad or general to be of much usefulness in comparative mythology. Others say that the hero's journey...

Words: 6297 - Pages: 26

Premium Essay

The Hunger Games Compared to "The Heroes Journey"

...Stephanie Levy Pd.7 The Hunger Games Essay “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” This quote was said by Joseph Campbell who also wrote The Hero’s Journey: A Summary of the Steps. These steps begins with the character in just his/her ordinary world and ending with that character, having gone through the most traumatic moment if their life, returning home and achieving what they set out to do. The book The Hunger Games, written by Suzan Collins, is a wonderful story about a girl who becomes a hero in a short amount of time and doesn’t really realize it. In The Hunger Games, the main character, Katniss Everdeen, experience most of these steps. One of the first steps in “The Hero’s Journey” is Call to Adventure. This step is the point in a person’s life when he/she is first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not. Katniss begins this step when she takes Primrose’s, her sister, place as the female tribute of District 12. “I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute.” (Page 22). Once she said that she realized that her whole life was about to change because she entered the Hunger Games. Soon after she volunteers, she meets up with her mom and Prim. She gives them her final goodbye as she says to her mom “You can’t clock out and leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both alive.” (Page 35). Katniss knows she won’t make it out of there alive so she tells her mom to take care of Prim...

Words: 931 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

The Hero's Journey In The Film 'O Brother, Where Art Thou'

...Movie Summary- The Hero’s Journey For this assignment I decided to rewatch a movie I know that follows the hero’s journey very well, and that is “O Brother, Where Art Thou” by Joel Coen, starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and John Goodman. The call to adventure in this movie is when the three farm workers decided to escape their work farm, and a black man that is blind predicts that their quest to fortune will give them nothing but failure. The refusal of the call is when Pete (one of the workers) doubts of the man’s prediction. The supernatural aid in this film is obviously the blind man that predicts the future. The first threshold the prisoners have to pass is to escape the farm they were sent to to work. The men enter the belly of the whale when Pete’s cousin calls the police to arrest the men for the money he would get in reward and the prisoners have to advance past this step...

Words: 570 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Matrix and the Hero's Journey

...considered by many as one of the best action movies in the film industry in decades. It was understandable after the success it had at the box office, and its success among viewers, which was not only local but global also. The structure of the journey of the hero, Neo, is nothing new. In fact, it starts and it ends like all the other journeys that preceded it, with the advantage of being rich in thought-provoking themes in comparison to the other movies of the genre. In order to help in the development of those themes, the Wachovski brothers use a lot of allusions, references from religions, myths, philosophy, literature, without changing the pattern of their hero’s journey which is clearly the same as the one represented in Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. Using the latter, it would possible to understand the use of certain figures of imagery, camera movements, and other tools by the Washovski brothers in the making of this film. 1- Departure Just like any other hero’s journey, the story of the matrix starts with the departure, which is comprised of five steps: a) The call to adventure b) Refusal of the Call Fotso 2 c) Supernatural Aid d) The Crossing of the first threshold e) The Belly of the Whale During this first stage of the journey, the hero has to separate from the world he knows, and in the movie “The Matrix” there are lots of symbols, motifs with connections to sleep, dreams, reality and choice. a) The call to adventure “The call to adventure is the point in a person's...

Words: 2059 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Epic Hero

...Harcourt, Brace, 1958. Print. The Alabama A&M University World Literature Anthology. New York: Pearson, 2009. Scodel, Ruth. "Oedipus the King." An Introduction to Greek Tragedy. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print. What defines an epic hero? There are many things that do, and I’m going to break the Epic Hero Cycle down describing how Job from the bible qualifies as an epic hero in the following passage. I will first list, and describe each step in the Epic Hero Cycle, then give a brief summary of the story, then describe each step of the Epic Hero Cycle using references of Oedipus from the Oedipus the King. The first step of the Epic Hero Cycle is meeting the main character, who usually possesses some type of supernatural power. The character is introduced, sometimes with an introduction. Occasionally there is a brief background on the character. The hero’s family may be introduced. The hero’s life may be good at the time, or it may be going bad. The second step of the Epic Hero Cycle is when the hero is charged with a quest. Usually given by a king or someone in high power, the hero is sent off on a voyage. Sometimes the hero is a figure such as an ultimate warrior, and the king sends him on a voyage since he is the bravest. The third step in the Epic Hero Cycle is when the hero is challenged with a test. The test is to prove himself as a worthy hero who can overcome any problem while on his quest. Sometimes...

Words: 1391 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Transformation of Life

...The Transformation of Life Throughout the years, Joseph Campbell’s Journey of the Hero has been used as a basic pattern of structure in many literary and motion picture works. Not only does it apply to the lives of ancient Greek heroes, it is also evident in many stories and movies in current popular culture. The Departure, Initiation, and Return stages of the journey cover a period of growth and passage, in which the hero accomplishes a great achievement and gains a new level of awareness and experience. The 1994 animation, The Lion King, demonstrates the use of the traditional journey of the hero in the modern world, as Simba takes on the responsibility to save his kingdom, defeats Scar, his enemy, and eventually restores Pride Rock to its former glory. After living a carefree life in the jungle, Simba is given the burden to reclaim his kingdom with the help of Rafiki, the baboon. During his encounter with Nala, his childhood friend calls him to adventure, convincing him to “take [his] place in the circle of life” (Allers, Minkoff, The Lion King). Simba’s encounter with Nala causes him to acknowledge the world he left behind and take action to save his kingdom from Scar’s oppression. Nala leaves him with the decision whether or not to accept his call to adventure and return to the place he had once escaped. With the help of Rafiki, Simba understands he must face the past and take responsibility to save Pride Rock from further disaster. Rafiki guides Simba to see a reflection...

Words: 914 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Gilgamesh

...the Mesopotamian city of Uruk in about 2750 BCE. In the epic, he has an intimate friend, Enkidu, a naked wild man who has been civilized through the erotic arts of a temple priestess. With him Gilgamesh battles monsters, and when Enkidu dies, he is inconsolable. He sets out on a desperate journey to find the one man who can tell him how to escape death. Part of the fascination of Gilgamesh is that, like any great work of literature, it has much to tell us about ourselves. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death, perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it, in portraying love and vulnerability and the quest for wisdom, it has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages. But it also has a particular relevance in today's world, with its polarized fundamentalisms, each side fervently believing in its own righteousness, each on a crusade, or jihad, against what it perceives as an evil enemy. The hero of this epic is an antihero, a superman (a superpower, one might say) who doesn't know the difference between strength and arrogance. By preemptively attacking a monster, he brings on himself a disaster that can only be overcome by an agonizing journey, a quest that results in wisdom by proving its own futility. The epic has an extraordinarily sophisticated moral intelligence. In its emphasis on balance and in its refusal to side with either hero or...

Words: 3615 - Pages: 15

Free Essay

The Influence of Greece on Western Civilization

...The Influence of Ancient Greece on Western Civilization Of all the cultures that have come and gone throughout human history, it was the achievements of ancient Greece that have left the most indelible imprint on Western civilization. In particular, it was greek achievements in the realms of art, democracy, medicine, philosophy and literature that has influenced the modern world the most. It is interesting to note that the loss of Greek thought after Roman civilization inducted a period popularly characterized as the Dark Ages. During this time human life was, in words popularized by Thomas Hobbes, “nasty, brutish and short.” Superstition, disease and a short life span were the hallmark of the age. It is crucial to understand that the middle “dark” ages finally ended with the re-discovery of greek texts to usher in the re-birth of civilization, ie: the Renaissance. It was the Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas that set Western civilization on its current track by reintroducing Greek thinkers to European intellectuals. The popularizing of Greek philosophers renewed Western interest in Greek achievements, specifically within the realms of art, democracy, medicine, literature, and philosophy. While some of these subjects remained underdeveloped in Greek times, such as the discipline of medicine and democracy, others were so advanced as to set a standard to this day in the realm of art, philosophy, and literature. Discussed herein is a brief exploration of those Greek achievements...

Words: 1702 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Sweet Dreams

...remember their dreams, but the study of dreams is something that has always intrigued me. IV. Central idea: Dreams are an important topic because everyone dreams. V. Preview of main points: Today I would like to share some information with you about the history, types, and interpretations of dreams. Transition: First of all I am going to briefly define dreams and tell you a bit about their history. Body I. A dream can be defined many different ways, but according to Webster’s dictionary a dream is a series of thoughts, images or emotions occurring during sleep. (Merriam-Webster, 2011) a. The first recorded dream dates back to seventh century BC and was also the first recorded story: The Chronicle of Gilgamesh. A story about “the hero’s journey,” which was recorded on clay tablets in Assyria. b. In the era of the Old Testament God spoke to humans by way of dreams. For example, Daniel ‘s dream interpretation saved him for death in the lion’s den. c. In ancient Greece the study of dreams becomes more complex and the first “dream dictionary” was written. d. In Native American tribes dreams are considered almost equal to the happenings of real-life and are often used to determine the specific individual will play in the tribe. e. Since the nineteenth century, dreams have been studied as a section of psychology. i. Dr. Sigmund Freud was considered the father of psychoanalysis and his book The...

Words: 898 - Pages: 4