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The Hero With a Thousand Faces
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By Jaret, Section Nonfiction (not archived on 4Literature)
Posted on Fri Oct 11th, 2002 at 10:51:21 PM EST
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Behind every myth lies a simple story, a common theme, a set of motifs that span the world. At the root of these motifs are the trials of life, and at the heart of the story, the hero. You are that hero, says Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces
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The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, 1948
Around the world, across the ages, man has hoped, dreamt, and felt fear. Each of us, in our time, goes through the rites of passage of birth, adulthood, death of loved ones, and more. To comfort, instruct, and explain away the mysteries of life in these times of need, myth is born. Each myth is the story, not of Osiris or Siegfried, but of man - every man and woman. Myth is the reflection of our lives, a cycle of birth and death, or change.
Common factors in life bring themes shared by myth, religion, and fairy tales around the world. In The Hero With a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell takes us on a tour with stops in every inhabited part of the world and every epoch. A summary of Campbell's prototypical myth is:
The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, 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). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero's sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again -- if the powers have remained unfriendly to him -- his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir).
Of course, not every myth has every one of these elements, and deviation is found. Campbell relies on major religious stories including those of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity; ancient but familiar myths such as those of Greece and Scandinavia; lesser-known tribal myths such as those of Australian aborigines, Africa, and Native America; fairy and folk tales such as those recorded by the Brothers Grimm and found in The Arabian Nights; and lastly, modern-day dreams. Through the book we visit and revisit various tales, coming to each stage as it illustrates a motif that Campbell would like to highlight.
Joseph Campbell relies on psychology as a buttress for his thesis. Unfortunately, the psychological ideas popular when the book was published include those of Jung and Freud which are no longer looked on as favorably. In fact, when the book began I felt some trepidation because the first section relies heavily on dream interpretation which hurt the book's credibility for me. Luckily I read on, and found that the portions on psychoanalysis and Freudian symbolism were only minor distractions.
Overall, The Hero With a Thousand Faces is an excellent introduction to myth and the structure behind it. The book is so densely packed with information that it's slow reading and would probably take multiple readings to absorb all of the information, but after one I already feel that I have gained a lot of insight into the subject.
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