Debating Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) has both good and bad about him. He was one of those brilliant scholars whose work actually affected more than one field of academics, a professor of literature whose contributions made an impact in literature, in mythology, and even in comparative religion. Hollywood’s film studios use elements of Campbell’s archetypes frequently, and George Lucas has credited Campbell for the structure of his Star Wars franchise. Taking a mythology course and not covering Campbell usually leaves something out, as his monomythic “Hero’s Journey,” as it is usually called, is an extremely helpful tool to understand and construct most narratives.

At the same time, students studying Campbell ought to do so with their eyes open. Campbell has been accused of over-generalizing at times in order to make his points applicable, and his Hero’s Journey has downright sexist elements. In some ways, studying Campbell can turn into an ethical discussion with one side suggesting Campbell ought not to be studied at all, and the other side suggesting that ignoring Campbell “throws out the baby with the bathwater,” an older saying which suggests that there is some good in Campbell’s work that cannot be ignored, even though there is some bad that should be discarded. Our approach to Campbell in this module will be just a little off-center in this debate: we will look at Campbell’s monomyth as he proposed it, call out the sexism where it is apparent, and suggest ways his work could be (and has been) rectified to be both useful and non-sexist.

As a literature professor, Campbell spent his life looking at stories. Over time, he began to see commonalities in stories, and as he continued to expand his study of stories to include narratives in mythology and folklore from around the world, he continued to see these commonalities. Combining them with the psychology of Sigmund Freud and especially Carl Jung, he coined the term “monomyth” to describe a basic pattern that all (good) stories tend to follow, and he named this monomyth the “Hero’s Journey.”

It should also be said that the Hero’s Journey over the decades has seen its fair share of changes and adaptations—at one point, there were no less than four scholarly versions of the story going around. For our course’s purposes, we are going to look at the journey as it was originally developed in Campbell’s influential book in which he introduced it, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The Hero’s Journey At Its Simplest

The Hero’s Journey is best understood at three levels, from the simplest to the most complex. At its simplest, the hero journeys from the ordinary world, a place where nothing extraordinary happens, the “Once upon a time” part of a story, to the world of adventure, where conflict and struggle and (usually) triumph exists. Then, usually, the hero returns to the ordinary world. At this stage, Campbell’s theory can be best understood in these laymen’s terms:

1. Ordinary World (“Once upon a time…”)
2. World of Adventure (“But then…” when conflict appears, until it is solved)
3. Ordinary World (A return which ends in, “…happily ever after.”)

The Hero’s Journey, Developed

This brings us to the middle level of complexity of understanding the Hero’s Journey. Campbell saw that this basic pattern, even though it involved only two worlds, tended to involve three phases. He called these phases “Departure,” “Initiation,” and “Return.”

In “Departure,” Campbell chronicled how the hero begins in the ordinary world and then has to leave it, usually because of external events. The hero is usually an unlikely one, and almost always initially unwilling to leave the ordinary world, and the circumstances which draw the hero into the world of adventure are usually well outside his control. (Note the “his” pronoun: for Campbell, heroes were always male. Interestingly, though, his theory applies for non-male heroes just as well, as will be seen later.)

In “Initiation,” Campbell traced the various ways in which a hero goes from unlikely and unwilling to an accomplished victor. The hero may have unwillingly crossed the threshold into the world of adventure, but in a series of events and phenomena the hero eventually conquers it. This includes, among other things, facing a series of temptations, finding help, and getting coaching from a father figure. (Again, note the sexism: the coach is a father figure, never feminine. This gender also can be changed with the theory still working.)

In the “Return,” Campbell outlined the means by which the hero returns to the ordinary world, whether the hero is tugged back into it against his will, or if he goes willingly, and how he becomes the master of both worlds, the ordinary world and the world of adventure, in the process.

The Complex Hero’s Journey

Campbell’s Hero’s Journey does not end with departure, initiation, and return, however. Within each of these, Campbell discovered either six or seven further elements, which he termed “stages.” All told, there are seventeen stages in the Hero’s Journey. The full Hero’s Journey is as follows, and the sexism is fairly evident:

Departure

1. Call to Adventure
2. Refusal of the Call
3. Supernatural Aid
4. Crossing the First Threshold
5. In the Belly of the Whale

Initiation

1. The Road of Trials
2. The Meeting with the Goddess
3. Woman As the Temptress
4. The Atonement of the Father
5. Apotheosis
6. The Ultimate Boon

Return

1. Refusal to Return
2. The Magic Flight
3. The Rescue From Without
4. Crossing the Return Threshold
5. Master of Two Worlds
6. Freedom to Live

What Campbell meant by each of these terms will be described in the next portion of the exploration.

Source

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Commemorative edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

To cite this reading, use the following format:

“Joseph Campbell in Outline.” Colorado Community College System, 2023.