The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Campbell summarizes the hero’s journey, both as a diagram and as a written summary of the prior chapters. The hero leaves his home and crosses the “threshold of adventure” (245), where he finds a guard blocking his passage. The hero must conquer or pacify the guard, or else he will die and thereby cross the threshold. The hero faces a series of tests until the final test, which renders a trophy upon his success. His trophy might be marriage with the “goddess-mother of the world” (246), father atonement with the creator deity, or the attainment of divinity. Alternately, the hero may steal his prize.

The hero returns home, either with divine protection or in flight from disgruntled deities. He crosses the threshold again, leaving behind the mystical and redeeming the world with his prize, or “elixir,” from the beyond.

Mythologies use these elements differently, either by magnifying certain portions of the narrative, redacting others, fusing elements, or containing several hero journeys as part of a larger story. As the stories travel across time and geographic region, they inevitably change as they are retold. Certain story elements remain that confound new audiences, prompting “secondary interpretations” (247) invented to better incorporate those elements into the story.