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The Monomyth
Joseph Campbell was born in New York City in 1904. He was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature and was a star runner on the track team. After earning his master’s degree, he studied at the universities of Paris and Munich, where he became immersed in the theories of Freud and Jung and the novels of Thomas Mann. In his mid–20s, Campbell abandoned his Ph.D. studies because he found them to be intellectually limiting. He then lived a “maverick’s” life for the next five years: reading in a cabin in the woods of Woodstock, writing short stories, road tripping across the country, playing saxophone in jazz bars, but spending most of his time immersed in the classics.
Campbell became an eminent scholar during his tenure as Professor of Comparative Literature and Mythology at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934 to 1972. It was there that he met and married Jean Erdman, his former student and a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 1949, Campbell wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a classic study of psychology and comparative mythology. His later books include the four-volume Masks of God (1959–1967), The Flight of the Wild Gander (1969), and The Mythic Image (1974). In 1987, an extremely popular television series aired on PBS, in which Campbell was interviewed by Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth was filmed at George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch, signifying Campbell’s enormous inspiration on the mythological structure of Lucas’s Star Wars films. The television interviews introduced Campbell’s theories to millions of people. The six-episode series is often re-aired on PBS and it has also become a bestseller in both book and video format, assuring that Campbell’s ideas will live on to inspire future generations of writers, storytellers and filmmakers. Joseph Campbell died in his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1987, shortly after the initial airing of The Power of Myth.
The universal quality of mythology is revealed in the archetypal figures and themes that pervade the myth. An inherent structure can be perceived throughout all mythology. Campbell called this universal structure the “monomyth,” a term that he borrowed from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. The monomyth is a single structure, just as the hero is a single figure. Just as the hero has a “thousand faces,” the myth has a thousand plots. In turn, both the hero and his myth share common archetypal elements. These elements were broken down by Campbell and structured in his model of the adventure of the hero. The most basic commonality behind all mythic structure is the symbolism behind the hero’s journey, which is the same as the symbolism behind the dream. Each stage of the hero’s adventure relates directly to the identity development of the hero’s character. The key to the hero’s adventure is that the protagonist is not a hero in the beginning—he must become a hero through the process of his journey. This transformation resonates with all people, because every human being must at one point in their life experience a similar identity transformation from boy into man, girl into woman, apprentice into master, etc.
The Hero’s Departure
At the first stage, the emergent hero is in the “world of the common day.” The story begins by pulling him out of his comfortable home by presenting a goal or quest. This is the “call to adventure,” typically made by the mentor figure, or a “herald” sent by the mentor to deliver the call. The traditional call plays upon the emergent hero’s sense of honor. The hero’s call to arms against a menacing foe is a universal theme, as every young man throughout history has been expected to answer his nation’s call in a time of war. The call to adventure often evokes deep feelings of loyalty and patriotism.
In Star Wars, Luke was not particularly interested in the struggle between the evil Empire and the desperate rebel forces. His call comes when he sees a maiden in distress, a hologram of Princess Leia, who is being held prisoner by the monstrous Darth Vader. Though his mentor, Obi-Wan, speaks of the righteous war against Vader and the Emperor, it his sense of chivalry that inspires Luke to take the journey. Luke’s call to adventure is reminiscent of a ubiquitous theme in Anglo-Saxon legends, in which the young squire sets off to save the maiden in distress, who is imprisoned in the dragon’s lair. In order to slay the dragon, the squire must first become a knight. Young Luke sets off to rescue the Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), but before he can defeat Darth Vader, he must learn the skills of the Jedi knight from his mentor, Obi-Wan.
Campbell noted that the hero rarely accepts the call immediately. The emergent hero’s reluctance to step out onto the treacherous path of identity development mirrors the same psychological reluctance we all feel at times of identity crisis in our own lives. Many of us were reluctant to leave high school (the world we knew) for college or the work world (the world of the unknown). Many brides and grooms experience cold feet on the eve of their wedding days, afraid of leaving behind their single lives for the very different world of marriage. And of course, young soldiers might be very wary of leaving behind the safety of home for the dangers of the battlefield. The “refusal of the call” is the second archetypal stage of the hero’s journey.
Reluctance itself depicts a flawed part of the emergent hero’s personality that must be changed. Fear and avoidance is a boyish quality. The hero must learn to overcome his fear and face the monster, beast or enemy with courage. The issue of bravery, the first archetypal element of the hero’s character, is dealt with at this crucial stage. Without courage, the protagonist will never be able to face his foe at the moment of greatest peril. A cowardly hero is virtually non-existent in classical myth and legend.
In some movies, reluctance is the central theme. In The Sunshine Boys (1975), the herald character (Richard Benjamin) spends most of the movie trying to get his two heroes (Walter Matthau and George Burns) to accept his call to reunite for one last act. Often times, the hero’s reluctance is overcome when the call is made stronger by the enemy. In The Patriot (2000), Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) doesn’t join the American Revolution until a brutal British commander kills his son. In Casablanca (1942), Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is initially reluctant to get involved with the French Resistance. His motto is, “I stick my neck out for nobody.” But eventually, he not only helps the Resistance, he takes great risks to save the leader of their cause, and he even gives up the love of his life. And finally, in Star Wars, Luke doesn’t accept Obi-Wan’s call to adventure until his aunt and uncle are killed by Storm Troopers. These acts of violence completely destroy the hero’s ordinary world. The fabric of the hero’s psyche is torn, and it will not be mended until justice is rendered.
Revenge is another extremely motivating force. Entire nations will be moved to war in order to distribute justice for brutal acts. America in particular is a vengeful nation. The idea of not avenging acts of hostility such as the devastation of the Alamo, the sinking of the Maine and the destruction of the World Trade Center is anathema to the American sense of honor and justice. A brutal act committed by the enemy raises the stakes for the hero. Reluctance is no longer an option, as his basic sense of humanity is shocked to the core. He must fight or die—fear and avoidance are out of the question. The vengeance motif is an exceptionally familiar call to adventure in Mel Gibson movies—see Braveheart (1995), The Patriot (2000), Mad Max (1979), Lethal Weapon (1987), Ransom (1996) and of course Payback (1999).
When the stakes are not raised in such a way, when revenge or honor are not called upon, the hero’s psyche may be plagued by reluctance and self-doubt throughout his mission. Frodo, in Lord of the Rings, is this sort of reluctant hero. At every step of his journey, Frodo questions his own abilities and his own dedication to his task. Until the end, he is never quite sure that he should be the “Ringbearer”—the one person destined to destroy the ring of power. His reluctance is reminiscent of Moses’ self doubt in The Ten Commandments. Moses was constantly asking God if he was really the best-suited individual to deliver the Israelites from bondage. Self-doubt or a basic lack of confidence in one’s self is the second basic character flaw that the hero must overcome. The great enemy cannot be defeated unless the hero has unfl
inching confidence in his ability to succeed. Often times, the hero does not display complete and utter self-confidence until the final moment of truth, when failure would result in certain death.
Guns and Knives
Once the hero accepts the call, he must equip himself with powerful weapons. The weapons of power are typically bestowed by the mentor, and often have a supernatural or divine force behind them. Campbell referred to this stage as supernatural aid. In Lord of the Rings, the mystical ring of power simultaneously represents Frodo’s quest and his supernatural aid. Moses’ staff was bestowed with divine powers, as was Arthur’s sword and Luke’s light saber. Sometimes the supernatural aid has a secret or sentimental power that bestows psychological rather than physical strength. In The Wizard of Oz, the ruby slippers contain the power to take Dorothy back home to Kansas. However, it is clear that this power is really her own—and that the ruby slippers would not be able to take her home if she had not first defeated the Wicked Witch with her own strength.
The cowboy hero in westerns usually has almost supernatural skills with his weapon of power, the six-shooter. In The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1967), the hero (Clint Eastwood) makes a living by rescuing his ally (Eli Wallach) in an unbelievable display of shooting wizardry. He turns in his outlaw friend, collects the reward and leaves town. But just before his ally is hung, the hero shoots through the hangman’s rope from a hundred yards away and then shoots the hat off of every man in town. The viewer believes that the hero can accomplish this feat on a regular basis because of the western hero’s legendary and supernatural mastery of his gun. Similarly, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Sundance (Robert Redford) shoots the gunbelt off of a man’s waist, and then shoots the gun across the room. In Silverado (1985), the hero’s (Scott Glenn) target practice consists of shooting every petal off of a wildflower from forty paces away. The godly shooting prowess of the western gunslinger is reminiscent of the powers of mythological swordsman heroes such as Perseus and Arthur.
Crossing the First Threshold
The hero’s departure from home into the world of mystery and danger is a monumental moment in his identity development. He and his audience must be aware of the awesome change in environment that the hero is experiencing. In our own world, times of great change are marked by special ceremonies: birthday parties, graduations, weddings, anniversaries and funerals. For the hero, the crossing of the first threshold into the world of adventure is a significant transition. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s faithful sidekick Sam (Sean Astin) takes time to acknowledge the moment when they have gone farther away from their home than they’ve ever gone before. At that moment, the crossing doesn’t seem so significant, but it soon becomes apparent that their environment has transformed from a world of safety and tranquility to a world of peril and danger.
The crossing is often marked by an encounter with a threshold guardian. This archetypal figure represents a barrier or obstacle that the hero must pass as a first test or initiation into the world of adventure. In The Lord of the Rings, the heroes must solve a riddle, which will open the Gates of Moria, while also evading the lake monster that protects the gate. This test of intellect is reminiscent of the riddle of the Sphinx from the Oedipus myth. The Sphinx is a threshold guardian who gives Oedipus two choices: either solve her riddle and pass freely, or be destroyed. By navigating around the threshold guardian, the hero demonstrates two more essential qualities of the hero archetype—intelligence and determination.
Typically, the threshold guardian is an ancient mystical force that is incredibly powerful, but disinterested in character. The guardian is neither friend nor foe, just an obstacle to be overcome. It’s too early for the emergent hero to risk a great battle. He is not yet strong enough. The guardian must either be appeased or avoided. In Clash of the Titans (1981), Perseus (Harry Hamlin) must pass a host of disinterested threshold guardians, including the three-headed dog Cerberus, the Gorgon Medusa and Charon—the skeletal ferryman on the river Styx. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her allies are faced with a trickster gatekeeper at the entrance to Oz. They must get past this fickle gatekeeper by telling him the exact right things that will persuade him to open the door.
Often times, nature itself plays the role of the disinterested but omnipotent gatekeeper. In Red River (1948), the heroes and their herd of cattle must cross a wide river as their first obstacle. In Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), the heroes must cross through a thick, hot and enemy infested jungle before reaching their battleground at the river. In director David Lean’s next epic, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) must cross through the unpassable Nefu desert before engaging his first enemy at Akkabah. And in Lean’s third epic, Doctor Zhivago (1965), the hero (Omar Sharif) must cross the vast Siberian tundra before his real journey begins. Whether the threshold guardian is nature or beast, it imparts an important lesson. The guardian teaches the young hero to have respect for forces that are older and more powerful than him.
After crossing the first threshold, the hero is in the belly of the whale—the world of adventure. In the archetypal rendition of this theme, the hero must make a fire in order to create the smoke that will cause the whale to sneeze and expel the hero from his belly. According to Campbell, the act of fire making is symbolic of the sex act. The spindle-stick (the male) is inserted into the socket-stick (the female), and the two are rubbed together until a flame is born. In this sense, the belly of the whale represents a womb. It is a realm of identity transformation in which the hero will become reborn.
Analyzing the Departure
The Ten Commandments
After a rather lengthy telling of the myth of the birth of Moses—involving a prophecy, separation from his parents and a royal heritage—Moses kills an Egyptian slave driver who was whipping an Israelite. Moses leaves Egypt and lives for many years in his adopted common world, as a poor shepherd in the Sinai wilderness. One day he encounters a divine presence, who speaks to him through a burning bush on Mt. Sinai. This mentor figure tells him that he must go to Egypt, liberate the Israelites from bondage and bring them to the mountain so they could receive God’s laws. At first, Moses refuses God’s call to adventure, finding it hard to believe that a regular Joe like him could be the great Messiah. But God can be very convincing. Moses accepts his call. He crosses the first threshold of the Red Sea and goes right into the belly of the whale, the Pharaoh’s palace, to deliver God’s message. Moses displays the supernatural aid that his mentor provided him by turning his staff into a serpent, but the unimpressed Pharaoh still turns down his request.
Excalibur
After a similar telling of the myth of the birth of Arthur—which also involves a prophecy, separation from his parents and a royal heritage—Arthur is in his common day world, a young squire to his brother Kay. On the morning of the big joust, Arthur loses his brother’s sword. In desperation, Arthur tugs at the “sword of kings”—Excalibur—and pulls it out of the stone. He knows that this means that he is the one true heir to the throne, but he refuses this call to adventure and gives Excalibur to Kay. Honest Kay admits that Arthur was the one who drew Excalibur from the stone, and though the other knights do not believe it could be true, Arthur places Excalibur back in the stone and draws it out again. Merlin the wizard, Arthur’s mentor, appears on the scene and informs young Arthur that he must become the king. However, many of the other knights refuse to bow to this pimple-faced squire. Excalibur or no Excalibur, “he is not worthy to be king,” they insist. So Arthur must cross his first threshold bearing the supernatural aid of Excalibur. He enters into the belly of the whale, the field of mortal combat.
Star Wars
Luke’s world of the common day is a quiet, dreary desert planet on the outskirts of the galaxy. Young Luke wants nothing more than to leave his boring life as a farmer and start a new adult life of adventure as a pilot in the Academy. His psychological desire is addressed when a new droid shows him a call to adventure—a hologram from a maide
n in distress. R2-D2, the rebellious droid, plays the role of the herald. Not only does he carry the hologram from Princess Leia, but he also leads Luke to his mentor, Obi-Wan, who supplies Luke with some supernatural aid. The light saber is not only a deadly weapon, but a symbol of Luke’s identity. The light saber belonged to Anakin, Luke’s father, and it is a physical link between Luke’s father and his destiny as a great Jedi knight. At first, Luke refuses the call to adventure. However, when Imperial Storm Troopers destroy Luke’s home and kill his aunt and uncle, Luke has no choice. He accepts the call and follows his mentor on the path to adventure, armed with his light saber and a desire to form a new identity as a Jedi knight.
The Lord of the Rings
Frodo is a normal, unassuming young hobbit, quite content in his world of the common day—his quiet, bucolic little village in the Shire. The only adventures that he’s interested in are the ones in the stories told to him by his beloved Uncle Bilbo. But his tranquil life is disturbed when Gandalf the Wizard comes to town. It seems that Bilbo’s little golden ring is actually the one unifying ring of power, the ring that Sauron needs to destroy his enemies and become the Dark Lord over all of Middle Earth. At first, Frodo refuses the call of his mentor to carry the ring out of the Shire, where it is no longer safe. But he soon agrees, tentatively, to bear the ring as far as Bree, the outpost town located just outside of the Shire. With the ring as both his supernatural aid and his heroic burden, Frodo crosses the first threshold out of the Shire, along with his faithful ally and sidekick, Sam. Soon they are joined by two more allies, the young and eager hobbits Merry and Pippin.
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