The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Hero with a Thousand Faces(first published in 1949) is a work ofcomparative mythologybyJoseph Campbell,in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypalherofound in worldmyths.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Cover of the third printing, 1972
Author	Joseph Campbell
Language	English
Subject	Mythology
Published	1949 (Pantheon Books) 1968 (2nd ed.) 2008 (3rd ed.)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcoverandpaperback)
ISBN	978-1-57731-593-3
Dewey Decimal	201/.3 22
LC Class	BL313.C28 2008

Since the publication ofThe Hero with a Thousand Faces,Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. FilmmakerGeorge Lucasacknowledged Campbell's theory in mythology, and its influence on theStar Warsfilms.

TheJoseph Campbell FoundationandNew World Libraryissued a new edition ofThe Hero with a Thousand Facesin July 2008 as part of theCollected Works of Joseph Campbellseries of books, audio and video recordings. In 2011,Timenamed it among the 100 most influential books written in English since 1923.

Summary

Campbell explores the theory that mythological narratives frequently share a fundamental structure. The similarities of these myths brought Campbell to write his book in which he details the structure of themonomyth.He calls the motif of the archetypal narrative, "the hero's adventure". In a well-known passage from the introduction toThe Hero with a Thousand Faces,Campbell summarizes the monomyth:

Aheroventures 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.

In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. "The hero's adventure" begins in theordinary world.He must depart from theordinary world,when he receives acall to adventure.With the help of amentor,the hero will cross aguarded threshold,leading him to a supernatural world, where familiar laws and order do not apply. There, the hero will embark on aroad of trials,where he is tested along the way. The archetypal hero is sometimes assisted byallies.As the hero faces theordeal,he encounters the greatest challenge of the journey. Upon rising to the challenge, the hero will receive a reward, orboon.Campbell's theory of the monomyth continues with the inclusion of a metaphoricaldeathandresurrection.The hero must then decide to return with thisboonto theordinary world.The hero then faces more trials onthe road back.Upon the hero's return, the boon or gift may be used to improve the hero's ordinary world, in what Campbell calls, theapplication of the boon.

While many myths do seem to follow the outline of Campbell's monomyth, there is some variance in the inclusion and sequence of some of the stages. Still, there is an abundance of literature and folklore that follows the motif of the archetypal narrative, paralleling the more general steps of "Departure" (sometimes calledSeparation), "Initiation", and "Return". "Departure" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, including thecall to adventure."Initiation" refers to the hero's adventures that will test him along the way. The last part of the monomyth is the "Return", which follows the hero's journey home.

Campbell studied religious, spiritual, mythological and literary classics including the stories ofOsiris,Prometheus,theBuddha,Moses,Mohammed,andJesus.The book cites the similarities of the stories, and references them as he breaks down the structure of the monomyth.

The book includes a discussion of "the hero's journey" by using theFreudianconcepts popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Campbell's theory incorporates a mixture ofJungian archetypes,unconsciousforces, andArnold van Gennep's structuring ofrites of passagerituals to provide some illumination."The hero's journey" continues to influence artists and intellectuals in contemporary arts and culture, suggesting a basic usefulness for Campbell's insights beyond mid-20th century forms of analysis.

Background

Campbell used the work of early-20th-century theorists to develop his model of the hero (see alsostructuralism), includingFreud(particularly theOedipus complex),Carl Jung(archetypalfigures and thecollective unconscious), andArnold Van Gennep.Van Gennep contributed the concept of there being three stages ofThe Rites of Passage.Campbell translated this intoSeparation,InitiationandReturn.He also looked to the work of psychoanalystOtto Rankand ethnographersJames George FrazerandFranz Boas.

Campbell was a noted scholar ofJames Joyce,having co-authoredA Skeleton Key to Finnegans WakewithHenry Morton Robinson.Campbell borrowed the termmonomythfrom Joyce'sFinnegans Wake.In addition, Joyce'sUlysseswas also highly influential in the structuring of the archetypal motif.

Publishing history

Cover of reprints of the book, featuring an image at bottom ofMark HamillasLuke Skywalkerin the filmStar Wars

The book was originally published by theBollingen FoundationthroughPantheon Pressas the seventeenth title in the Bollingen Series. This series was taken over byPrinceton University Press,who published the book through 2006. Originally issued in 1949 and revised by Campbell in 1968,The Hero with a Thousand Faceshas been reprinted a number of times. Reprints issued after the release ofStar Warsin 1977 used the image ofMark HamillasLuke Skywalkeron the cover. Princeton University Press issued a commemorative printing of the second edition in 2004 on the occasion of the joint centennial of Campbell's birth and the Press's founding with an added foreword byClarissa Pinkola Estés.

A third edition, compiled by theJoseph Campbell Foundationand published byNew World Library,was released as the twelfth title in theCollected Works of Joseph Campbellseries in July 2008.

The Hero with a Thousand Faceshas been translated into over twenty languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (simplifiedandtraditional), Turkish, Dutch, Greek, Danish, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Hebrew, and has sold well over a million copies worldwide.

Artists influenced by the work

Main article:Monomyth

InPathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation,a book drawn from Campbell's late lectures and workshops, he says about artists and the monomyth:

Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives. [...]

The artist is meant to put the objects of this world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal. The hero's journey is one of the universal patterns through which that radiance shows brightly. What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of a fiasco.

But there's also the possibility of bliss.

— Joseph Campbell,

Influences on artists

The Hero with a Thousand Faceshas influenced a number of artists, filmmakers, musicians, producers and poets. Some of these figures includeBob Dylan,George Lucas,Mark BurnettandJim Morrison.Additionally,Mickey Hart,Bob Weir,andJerry Garciaof theGrateful Deadhad long noted Campbell's influence and participated in a seminar with Campbell in 1986, entitled "From Ritual to Rapture".

In film

Stanley KubrickintroducedArthur C. Clarketo the book during the writing of2001: A Space Odyssey.

George Lucas' deliberate use of Campbell's theory of the monomyth in the making of theStar Warsmovies is well documented. On the DVD release of the famous colloquy between Campbell andBill Moyers,filmed at Lucas'Skywalker Ranchand broadcast in 1988 onPBSasThe Power of Myth,Campbell and Moyers discussed Lucas's use ofThe Hero with a Thousand Facesin making his films.Lucas himself discussed how Campbell's work affected his approach to storytelling and film-making.

In games

Jenova Chen,lead designer atthatgamecompany,also citesThe Hero's Journeyas the primary inspiration for thePlayStation 3gameJourney(2012).

In literature

Christopher Vogler,a Hollywood film producer and writer, wrote a memo forDisney Studioson the use ofThe Hero with a Thousand Facesas a guide for scriptwriters; this memo influenced the creation of such films asBeauty and the Beast(1991),Aladdin(1992), andThe Lion King(1994). Vogler later expanded the memo and published it as the bookThe Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers,which became the inspiration for a number of successful Hollywood films and is believed to have been used in the development of theMatrixseries.

NovelistRichard Adamsacknowledges a debt to Campbell's work, and specifically to the concept of the monomyth.In his best known work,Watership Down,Adams uses extracts fromThe Hero with a Thousand Facesas chapter epigrams.

AuthorNeil Gaiman,whose work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure,says that he startedThe Hero with a Thousand Facesbut refused to finish it:

"I think I got about half way throughThe Hero with a Thousand Facesand found myself thinking if this is true—I don't want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it's true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is. "

Many scholars and reviewers have noted how closelyJ. K. Rowling's popularHarry Potterbooks hewed to the monomyth schema.

In television

Dan Harmon,the creator of the TV showsCommunityandRick and Morty,has used the monomyth as inspiration for his work.

See also

• The Golden BoughbyJames George Frazer
• The Iron DreambyNorman Spinrad
• The Seven Basic PlotsbyChristopher Booker
• Archetypal literary criticism
• Vladimir Propp
• Aarne–Thompson classification systems
• Bildungsroman
• The Myth of the Birth of the HerobyOtto Rank
• Kishu ryūritan

Bibliography

• Campbell, Joseph.The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work.Edited and with an Introduction byPhil Cousineau.Foreword by Stuart L. Brown, Executive Editor. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.
• Campbell, Joseph and Henry Morton Robinson.A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake,1944.
• Campbell, Joseph.The Hero with a Thousand Faces.1st edition, Bollingen Foundation, 1949. 2nd edition, Princeton University Press. 3rd edition, New World Library, 2008.
• Campbell, Joseph.Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation.Edited by David Kudler. Novato, California: New World Library, 2004.
• Ford, Clyde W.The Hero with an African Face.New York: Bantam, 2000.
• Henderson, Mary.Star Wars: The Magic of Myth. Companion volume to the exhibition at theNational Air and Space Museumof theSmithsonian Institution.New York: Bantam, 1997.
• Larsen, Stephen and Robin Larsen.Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind.Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2002.
• Manganaro, Marc.Myth, Rhetoric, and the Voice of Authority: A Critique of Frazer, Eliot, Frye, and Campbell.New Haven: Yale, 1992.
• Moyers, Bill and Joseph Campbell.The Power of Myth.Anchor: Reissue edition, 1991.ISBN0-385-41886-8
• Pearson, Carol and Katherine Pope.The Female Hero in American and British Literature.New York: R.R. Bowker, 1981.
• Vogler, Christopher.The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers.Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 1998.

Further reading

• Leeming, David Adams (1998) [1973].Mythology; Journey of the Hero.Oxford University Press.

External links

• Information on the 2008 third edition from the Joseph Campbell Foundation
• Monomyth from UC Berkeley(archived)