The Hero-Myth According toJoseph Campbell

Call to Adventure . . .

The Hero is “lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds to the threshold of adventure” (Campbell 245).

This adventure draws the hero out of his every day, normal world.

Initial reluctance . . .

Initially, the hero feels reluctance The hero receives encouragement

from a protective figure (perhaps a wise old man or woman)

The protective figure provides “amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass” (Campbell 69).

The first threshold . . .

A “shadow presence” guards the passageway

The hero must “defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark” (Campbell 245)

Beyond the threshold . . .

Once through, the hero “journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers)” (Campbell 246).

This amounts to a kind of training for the hero.

The innermost cave . . .

A place of danger A black moment Often deep underground The place of a “supreme ordeal” that

the hero must survive in order to earn his or her “reward” (Campbell 246).

The Road Back . . .

The return journey is another scene of danger and pursuit. The hero isn’t safe yet!

The return is the “final work” (Campbell 246).

The Return Threshold . . .

At the return threshold, the “transcendental powers” of the hero must remain behind (Campbell 246).

The hero “re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir)” (Campbell 246).

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a

Thousand Faces. Princeton:

Princeton U P, 1973.