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The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell outlines the monomyth, or hero’s journey, which is a structure shared by myths and stories worldwide. Campbell dissects the journey into three major sections and multiple subsections, showing how it has been used in storytelling from Greek mythology to present day, including inspiring the Star Wars movies.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a work of non-fiction by American author and mythology scholar Joseph Campbell. The book outlines the hero’s journey, which can be seen to share a structure across a number of different myths and stories around the world. Campbell illustrates that the basic structure of most stories is the same and the value lies in how a story is told.
The hero’s journey is what Campbell terms the monomyth. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he compiles examples from a number of myths that illustrate the typical stages a hero goes through on his journey through history. The book compares myths from very different cultures that all have the same basic structure, including Greek myths such as the story of Odysseus, Chinese stories of the Buddha, and many Christian stories. While not all myths or stories have events that correspond to each stage, the events in the stories can be divided into the various sections of the monomyth.
Campbell divides the stories into sections that correspond to the hero’s life. Three major sections, called separation, initiation, and return, are further divided into multiple subsections. In the parting section, the hero is born, raised, and called on a mission or adventure of some kind. The initiation section deals with completing the quest, and the returning portion of the story tells of the hero not only returning home, but also passing on what was learned on the journey.
Within these three sections, The Hero with a Thousand Faces further dissects the stories. There is usually a section on the hero’s birth and circumstances surrounding him, then stories about his upbringing and then the introduction of an older mentor figure. Stories often follow with an event that initiates the adventure, and from there the hero is faced with a series of trials or obstacles which he must overcome, usually with the help of some new acquaintance. This turns into a final showdown, after which the hero leaves the adventure world and returns home, usually with the knowledge or object he brings back.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces demonstrates how this has been a way of storytelling from the earliest days of Greek mythology to the present day. He illustrates how this time-honored tradition of storytelling has become ingrained in the human imagination and how it can be applied to any type of narrative without the story losing any of its mystery and power. While there are some stories in which this pattern can be heavily wrapped up, it can still be found throughout literature and religion.
Perhaps the best known example of the inspiration The Hero with a Thousand Faces has provided is with the Star Wars movies. George Lucas has said that the book was in many ways the inspiration behind his space fantasy, and the events in the film can be arranged according to Campbell’s model. Countless other movies, books, and even songs have followed the same pattern, and it remains a timeless pattern with endless possibilities.
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