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The Hero’s Journey

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 10 August 2023
• Cite this living reference work entry

• James K. Beggan 4  

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Call to action ; Heroine’s journey ; Monomyth

The hero’s journey concept was developed by Joseph Campbell (Campbell 1949 /2008) in his classic work The Hero with a Thousand Faces . According to this idea, all legends, stories, and myths follow the same core narrative, called the monomyth, which consists of three stages: departure, initiation, and return.

Heroes are people who put themselves at risk for the welfare of others. Heroism can be distinguished from helping behavior based on the degree of benefit to the target and cost or potential cost to the helper. Heroism is associated with high cost to the helper and high benefit to the recipient. Helping behavior is more generally thought of as actions that provide a benefit to a target but that operates at a lower level of intensity and does not occur in a state of high stress or an emergency.

It is possible to distinguish among martial, civil, and social heroism (Franco et al. 2011 ). Martial and civil heroism involve...

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Beggan, J.K. 2019. On the downside of heroism: Grey zone limitations on the value of social and physical risk heroism. Heroism Science 4 (2).

Google Scholar  

———. 2020. Monomyth or monogamyth? Polyamory’s conceptual challenges to the hero’s journey. Heroism Science 5 (2).

Campbell, J. 1949/2008. The hero with a thousand faces 3 Novato, CA: New World Library.

Franco, Z.E., K. Blau, P.G. Zimbardo, and P. G. 2011. Heroism: A conceptual analysis and differentiation between heroic action and altruism. Review of General Psychology 15 (2): 99–113.

Article   Google Scholar  

Frankel, V.E. 2010. From girl to goddess: The heroine’s journey through myth and legend . Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Heiner, E.K. 2019. Fostering heroism in fourth-and fifth-grade students. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 59 (4): 596–616.

Kinsella, E.L., S. Hughes, S. Lemon, N. Stonebridge, and R.C. Sumner. 2022. We shouldn’t waste a good crisis: The lived experience of working on the frontline through the first surge (and beyond) of COVID-19 in the UK and Ireland. Psychology & Health 37 (2): 151–177.

Lawson, G. 2005. The hero's journey as a developmental metaphor in counseling. The Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development 44 (2): 134–144.

Pearson, C., and K. Pope. 1981. The female hero in American and British literature . New York, NY: R. R. Bowker Company.

Richardson, B.K., and J. McGlynn. 2021. Constructing the heroic whistleblower: A social scientific approach. Heroism Science 6 (2).

Rodriguez-Morales, L. 2019. A hero’s journey: becoming and transcendence in addiction recovery. Journal of Psychological Therapies 4 (2): 155–166.

Zimbardo, P. G., Z. Franco, and S. T. Allison. 2017. A conference on the educational transformation of today’s emerging adults into tomorrow’s extraordinary heroes.

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Department of Sociology, University of Louisville, Louisville, USA

James K. Beggan

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Department of Psychology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA

Scott T. Allison

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Beggan, J.K. (2023). The Hero’s Journey. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_504-1

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Received : 02 July 2023

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Published : 10 August 2023

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• The Hero's Journey

Teaching Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell, an American mythological researcher, wrote a famous book entitled  The Hero with a Thousand Faces .  In his lifelong research Campbell discovered many common patterns running through hero myths and stories from around the world.  Years of research lead Campbell to discover several basic stages that almost every hero-quest goes through (no matter what culture the myth is a part of).  He calls this common structure “the monomyth.” It is commonly referred to as "The Hero's Journey."

George Lucas, the creator of  Star Wars , claims that Campbell’s monomyth was the inspiration for his groundbreaking films.  Lucas also believes that Star Wars is such a popular saga because it taps into a timeless story-structure which has existed for thousands of years.

The Hero's Journey is a great technique for analyzing all kinds of stories--whether they be myths, legends, films, novels, short stories, plays, or even comic books.  Educating students about the Hero's Journey encourages them to think about plot structure, character motivation, and theme. It also leads them to consider what qualities they associate with heroes. Are heroes born or are they made? Are there heroes in real-life or must they be larger-than-life? Who are the heroes in our society. Listed below are some resources that I have found successful in my own classroom for teaching the Hero's Journey:

THE HERO'S JOURNEY (PDF)    This worksheet gives an overview of the Hero's Journey, as outlined by Joseph Campbell and others.  Each step is listed, along with examples from film and literature.

SAMPLE HERO'S JOURNEY UNIT (PDF) This outline provides a suggested unit using this site's resources.

WHY YOUNG PEOPLE NEED HERO STORIES NOW MORE THAN EVER (ARTICLE)  This article explains the numerous real-life applications of the Hero's Journey, a message of hope that young people need to hear! 

DETAILED PRESENTATION ON THE STAGES OF THE HERO'S JOURNEY WITH LIFE-APPLICATION (SALE ITEM)   This in-depth presentation covers the stages of the Hero's Journey, using visual examples from   Star Wars   and   The Lion King.  Each stage also has a "My Journey" section that gives each stage a real-life application. Also comes with a note-taking sheet with student use.

DESIGN-A-QUEST: CREATIVE GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS FOR MAKING YOUR OWN HERO'S JOURNEY (SALE ITEM)  Want to give your students some practice writing their own Hero's Journey? This set of graphic organizers is perfect for young writers who want to invent some heroes of their own. Using your choice of written-response only or a creative, comic-book-style combination of artwork and written responses, these graphic organizers allow students to create their own hero story. This item also includes a sample Hero's Journey using Disney's  Aladdin  as an example.

Free Download: Exploring the 12 Stages of the Hero's Journey

Explore the 12 stages of "The Hero's Journey" with this free downloadable PDF guide. Some of Hollywood's best screenwriters have been profoundly influenced by Joseph Campbell's teachings on The Hero's Journey.

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12 Hero’s Journey Stages Explained (+ Free Templates)

From zero to hero, the hero’s journey is a popular character development arc used in many stories. In today’s post, we will explain the 12 hero’s journey stages, along with the simple example of Cinderella.

The Hero’s Journey was originally formulated by American writer Joseph Campbell to describe the typical character arc of many classic stories, particularly in the context of mythology and folklore. The original hero’s journey contained 17 steps. Although the hero’s journey has been adapted since then for use in modern fiction, the concept is not limited to literature. It can be applied to any story, video game, film or even music that features an archetypal hero who undergoes a transformation. Common examples of the hero’s journey in popular works include Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

• What is the hero's journey?

Stage 1: The Ordinary World

Stage 2: call of adventure, stage 3: refusal of the call, stage 4: meeting the mentor, stage 5: crossing the threshold, stage 6: tests, allies, enemies, stage 7: the approach, stage 8: the ordeal, stage 9: reward, stage 10: the road back, stage 11: resurrection, stage 12: return with the elixir, cinderella example, campbell’s 17-step journey, leeming’s 8-step journey, cousineau’s 8-step journey.

• Free Hero's Journey Templates

What is the hero’s journey?

The hero’s journey, also known as the monomyth, is a character arc used in many stories. The idea behind it is that heroes undergo a journey that leads them to find their true selves. This is often represented in a series of stages. There are typically 12 stages to the hero’s journey. Each stage represents a change in the hero’s mindset or attitude, which is triggered by an external or internal event. These events cause the hero to overcome a challenge, reach a threshold, and then return to a normal life.

The hero’s journey is a powerful tool for understanding your characters. It can help you decide who they are, what they want, where they came from, and how they will change over time. It can be used to

• Understand the challenges your characters will face
• Understand how your characters react to those challenges
• Help develop your characters’ traits and relationships

In this post, we will explain each stage of the hero’s journey, using the example of Cinderella.

You might also be interested in our post on the story mountain or this guide on how to outline a book .

12 Hero’s Journey Stages

The archetypal hero’s journey contains 12 stages and was created by Christopher Vogler. These steps take your main character through an epic struggle that leads to their ultimate triumph or demise. While these steps may seem formulaic at first glance, they actually form a very flexible structure. The hero’s journey is about transformation, not perfection.

Your hero starts out in the ordinary world. He or she is just like every other person in their environment, doing things that are normal for them and experiencing the same struggles and challenges as everyone else. In the ordinary world, the hero feels stuck and confused, so he or she goes on a quest to find a way out of this predicament.

Example: Cinderella’s father passes away and she is now stuck doing chores and taking abuse from her stepsisters and stepmother.

The hero gets his or her first taste of adventure when the call comes. This could be in the form of an encounter with a stranger or someone they know who encourages them to take a leap of faith. This encounter is typically an accident, a series of coincidences that put the hero in the right place at the right time.

Example: An invite arrives inviting the family to a royal ball where the Prince will choose a wife.

Some people will refuse to leave their safe surroundings and live by their own rules. The hero has to overcome the negative influences in order to hear the call again. They also have to deal with any personal doubts that arise from thinking too much about the potential dangers involved in the quest. It is common for the hero to deny their own abilities in this stage and to lack confidence in themselves.

Example: Cinderella accepts the call by making her own dress for the ball. However, her stepmother refuses the call for her by not letting her go to the ball. And her step-sisters ruin her dress, so she can not go.

After hearing the call, the hero begins a relationship with a mentor who helps them learn about themselves and the world. In some cases, the mentor may be someone the hero already knows. The mentor is usually someone who is well-versed in the knowledge that the hero needs to acquire, but who does not judge the hero for their lack of experience.

Example: Cinderella meets her fairy godmother who equips her with everything she needs for the ball, including a dress and a carriage.

The hero leaves their old life behind and enters the unfamiliar new world. The crossing of the threshold symbolises leaving their old self behind and becoming a new person. Sometimes this can include learning a new skill or changing their physical appearance. It can also include a time of wandering, which is an essential part of the hero’s journey.

Example: Cinderella hops into the carriage and heads off to the ball. She has transformed from a servant into an elegant young lady. 

As the hero goes on this journey, they will meet both allies (people who help the hero) and enemies (people who try to stop the hero). There will also be tests, where the hero is tempted to quit, turn back, or become discouraged. The hero must be persistent and resilient to overcome challenges.

Example: At the ball, Cinderella meets the prince, and even see’s her stepmother and stepsister. She dances with Prince all night long making her step-sisters extremely jealous.

The hero now reaches the destination of their journey, in some cases, this is a literal location, such as a cave or castle. It could also be metaphorical, such as the hero having an internal conflict or having to make a difficult decision. In either case, the hero has to confront their deepest fears in this stage with bravery. In some ways, this stage can mark the end of the hero’s journey because the hero must now face their darkest fears and bring them under control. If they do not do this, the hero could be defeated in the final battle and will fail the story.

Example: Cinderella is having a great time at the ball and nearly forgets about the midnight rule. As she runs away in a hurry, her glass slipper falls off outside the palace.

The hero has made it to the final challenge of their journey and now must face all odds and defeat their greatest adversary. Consider this the climax of the story. This could be in the form of a physical battle, a moral dilemma or even an emotional challenge. The hero will look to their allies or mentor for further support and guidance in this ordeal. Whatever happens in this stage could change the rest of the story, either for good or bad. 

Example: Prince Charming looks all over the kingdom for the mysterious girl he met at the ball. He finally visits Cinderella’s house and tries the slippers on the step-sisters. The prince is about to leave and then he sees Cinderella in the corner cleaning.

When the hero has defeated the most powerful and dangerous of adversaries, they will receive their reward. This reward could be an object, a new relationship or even a new piece of knowledge. The reward, which typically comes as a result of the hero’s perseverance and hard work, signifies the end of their journey. Given that the hero has accomplished their goal and served their purpose, it is a time of great success and accomplishment.

Example: The prince tries the glass slipper on Cinderella. The glass slipper fits Cinderella perfectly, and they fall in love.

The journey is now complete, and the hero is now heading back home. As the hero considers their journey and reflects on the lessons they learned along the way, the road back is sometimes marked by a sense of nostalgia or even regret. As they must find their way back to the normal world and reintegrate into their former life, the hero may encounter additional difficulties or tests along the way. It is common for the hero to run into previous adversaries or challenges they believed they had overcome.

Example: Cinderella and Prince Charming head back to the Prince’s castle to get married.

The hero has one final battle to face. At this stage, the hero might have to fight to the death against a much more powerful foe. The hero might even be confronted with their own mortality or their greatest fear. This is usually when the hero’s true personality emerges. This stage is normally symbolised by the hero rising from the dark place and fighting back. This dark place could again be a physical location, such as the underground or a dark cave. It might even be a dark, mental state, such as depression. As the hero rises again, they might change physically or even experience an emotional transformation. 

Example: Cinderella is reborn as a princess. She once again feels the love and happiness that she felt when she was a little girl living with her father.

At the end of the story, the hero returns to the ordinary world and shares the knowledge gained in their journey with their fellow man. This can be done by imparting some form of wisdom, an object of great value or by bringing about a social revolution. In all cases, the hero returns changed and often wiser.

Example: Cinderella and Prince Charming live happily ever after. She uses her new role to punish her stepmother and stepsisters and to revitalise the kingdom.

We have used the example of Cinderella in Vogler’s hero’s journey model below:

Below we have briefly explained the other variations of the hero’s journey arc.

The very first hero’s journey arc was created by Joseph Campbell in 1949. It contained the following 17 steps:

• The Call to Adventure: The hero receives a call or a reason to go on a journey.
• Refusal of the Call: The hero does not accept the quest. They worry about their own abilities or fear the journey itself.
• Supernatural Aid: Someone (the mentor) comes to help the hero and they have supernatural powers, which are usually magical.
• The Crossing of the First Threshold: A symbolic boundary is crossed by the hero, often after a test. 
• Belly of the Whale: The point where the hero has the most difficulty making it through.
• The Road of Trials: In this step, the hero will be tempted and tested by the outside world, with a number of negative experiences.
• The Meeting with the Goddess: The hero meets someone who can give them the knowledge, power or even items for the journey ahead.
• Woman as the Temptress: The hero is tempted to go back home or return to their old ways.
• Atonement with the Father: The hero has to make amends for any wrongdoings they may have done in the past. They need to confront whatever holds them back.
• Apotheosis: The hero gains some powerful knowledge or grows to a higher level. 
• The Ultimate Boon: The ultimate boon is the reward for completing all the trials of the quest. The hero achieves their ultimate goal and feels powerful.
• Refusal of the Return: After collecting their reward, the hero refuses to return to normal life. They want to continue living like gods. 
• The Magic Flight: The hero escapes with the reward in hand.
• Rescue from Without: The hero has been hurt and needs help from their allies or guides.
• The Crossing of the Return Threshold: The hero must come back and learn to integrate with the ordinary world once again.
• Master of the Two Worlds: The hero shares their wisdom or gifts with the ordinary world. Learning to live in both worlds.
• Freedom to Live: The hero accepts the new version of themselves and lives happily without fear.

David Adams Leeming later adapted the hero’s journey based on his research of legendary heroes found in mythology. He noted the following steps as a pattern that all heroes in stories follow:

• Miraculous conception and birth: This is the first trauma that the hero has to deal with. The Hero is often an orphan or abandoned child and therefore faces many hardships early on in life. 
• Initiation of the hero-child: The child faces their first major challenge. At this point, the challenge is normally won with assistance from someone else.
• Withdrawal from family or community: The hero runs away and is tempted by negative forces.
• Trial and quest: A quest finds the hero giving them an opportunity to prove themselves.
• Death: The hero fails and is left near death or actually does die.
• Descent into the underworld: The hero rises again from death or their near-death experience.
• Resurrection and rebirth: The hero learns from the errors of their way and is reborn into a better, wiser being.
• Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement: The hero gains some powerful knowledge or grows to a higher level (sometimes a god-like level). 

In 1990, Phil Cousineau further adapted the hero’s journey by simplifying the steps from Campbell’s model and rearranging them slightly to suit his own findings of heroes in literature. Again Cousineau’s hero’s journey included 8 steps:

• The call to adventure: The hero must have a reason to go on an adventure.
• The road of trials: The hero undergoes a number of tests that help them to transform.
• The vision quest: Through the quest, the hero learns the errors of their ways and has a realisation of something.
• The meeting with the goddess: To help the hero someone helps them by giving them some knowledge, power or even items for the journey ahead.
• The boon: This is the reward for completing the journey.
• The magic flight: The hero must escape, as the reward is attached to something terrible.
• The return threshold: The hero must learn to live back in the ordinary world.
• The master of two worlds: The hero shares their knowledge with the ordinary world and learns to live in both worlds.

As you can see, every version of the hero’s journey is about the main character showing great levels of transformation. Their journey may start and end at the same location, but they have personally evolved as a character in your story. Once a weakling, they now possess the knowledge and skill set to protect their world if needed.

Free Hero’s Journey Templates

Use the free Hero’s journey templates below to practice the skills you learned in this guide! You can either draw or write notes in each of the scene boxes. Once the template is complete, you will have a better idea of how your main character or the hero of your story develops over time:

The storyboard template below is a great way to develop your main character and organise your story:

Did you find this guide on the hero’s journey stages useful? Let us know in the comments below.

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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The Hero's Journey: Life's Great Adventure

Harris Communications: Home of the Hero's Journey Since 1997

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Personal Mandala Project

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Campbell’s Monomyth: The Quest for the Mythic Hero

A comprehensive guide to Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth

The Hero’s Journey in Five Days: Teaching the Basics

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The Hero’s Journey: The Path of Transformation

The most comprehensive guide available for teaching the Hero’s Journey.

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Reconfiguring the Hero's Journey

2020, Reconfiguring the Hero's Journey

Thesis introductory chapter. This thesis examines key stages of the Hero’s Journey, or Monomyth, as set out by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) and finds that the pattern retains its pertinence and relevance in contemporary texts and media. This is accomplished through a close reading of selected contemporary texts which engage with the pattern. In doing this, the project appraises the ways in which the pattern and the chosen texts inform each other, as well as examining its continued usefulness as a critical tool, the better to shed new light on the Monomyth itself. The thesis is structured in the same way as the Hero’s Journey itself, beginning with the "Call to Adventure" and ending with the "Master of the Two Worlds." These close examinations, each presented in a stand-alone article, serve as arguments for the pattern’s continued validity as a tool for understanding story. The narratives with which it engages represent a number of different genres and media, including Young Adult literature, action cinema, superhero comics and autobiographical graphic novels. Through these readings it is shown that the Monomyth still informs, and is informed by, these texts. These readings work toward a new way of looking at the pattern: as a representation of the liminal space between the two established modes of existence of a story’s protagonist. Representing all that happens between the time the hero leaves the mundane world in which he has lived, and the time he returns to it transformed, the Hero’s Journey is found to represent a productive liminality that allows the hero to transition from one stage of life to the next. Revisiting the pattern using contemporary texts and media helps to bring to light its continued usefulness as a critical framework from which to assess the heroic narratives of today.

Related Papers

Luis R Cancel

As someone who enjoys anthropology, history and art, I sometimes imagine the early ancestors of humankind, sitting around a campfire telling stories about the hunting exploits of one of their relatives, or the elaborate retelling of one of their own adventures. It is a deeply ingrained need of the human race to seek out someone or something that can inspire them, that can give them hope. As a result, across most cultures, we find examples of the monomyth, the common mythical story of the hero or heroine that is defined as " …characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity. " The Hero's Quest, their journey fraught with challenges, dangers, traps and ultimate triumph, leads to spiritual and psychological growth, and the successful return of the hero or heroine. It is a lesson and a story that needs retelling to each generation. The Ancient Greeks, with their innumerable myths and epic poems set the model for how best to retell the hero's story using the communication tools of their time: the bard, the poem and the song. The bards would travel from village to village and from one great hall to the next, and enjoy hospitality while they shared their accumulated tales and composed new poems and songs that would memorialize the local deeds of their hosts – they were a form of roving news magazine spreading current events and the hero's story. Today, with the density of our cities and the advances in the means of communication, information moves at the speed of light, stories from near and far comingles and competes for our limited attention span. For the mainstream media (television, radio, newspapers) news events are disseminated, consumed and supplanted by other breaking news events in a cycle that is accelerating to the point of fusing it all together into background noise that makes it difficult to find the hero's story.

benjamin van tourhout

Stephan Sonnenburg

Joseph Campbell is the mythographer of the last century who has congenially opened the mythological universe to both scholars and to a wide range of people searching for pathways to enlighten their lives. His elixir of life was to help people “see myth as a reflection of the one sublime adventure of life, and then to breathe new life into it” (Campbell, 2003, p. xiv). The hero’s journey is his gift, his “ultimate boon” (Campbell, 2008, p. 29) for the human condition and social world. It represents a universal motif which runs through virtually all kinds of change, transformation, and growth. The main objective of this special issue of the Journal of Genius and Eminence is to explore the multi-faceted potential of the hero’s journey and perhaps shed new light on it. The introduction gives an overview of Campbell’s ultimate boon and a summary of each of the 12 articles that follow. Distinguished scientists and outstanding practitioners have joined this journey in tribute to Campbell and the 30th anniversary of his death. The contributors take us far and wide, exploring different ways to explore Campbell’s thoughts, allowing insights into the nuances and subtleties of his mythological world, and striking new ways to illuminate the Campbellian universe.

Rosamund Davies

The ancient creative practice of narrative is recognized as an important meaning making activity in business, in the contexts of both academic study and commercial practice. Drawing on these developments, this chapter will focus on the creative potential, within business, for narrative models developed in the field of screenwriting. The latter is an area of creative writing that focuses particularly on story structure. It has produced a range of normative narrative models that recur as the underpinning templates of film and television narratives. The most well known of these is perhaps Christopher Vogler’s reworking of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Taking this text as my starting point, this chapter discusses the particular implications of the use of the Hero’s journey narrative model in a business context, examining the power of narrative retelling and the meaning making possibilities and limitations of different narrative models.

Scott T Allison

Nicole Falkenhayner

Irina Jauhiainen

In this paper I've explored some works of contemporary fantasy fiction through the lens of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The fantasy genre's formulaic similarity with ancient mythology illustrates the genre's importance to the collective imagination, and the universal need for a sense of enchantment in the modern world.

Violeta Martínez-Alcañiz

Achim Aurnhammer

From antiquity to the present time, “from Achilles to Zidane” (so the title of a recent exhibition; Faliu/Tourett),1 heroes have represented key elements of the cultural imaginary and the symbolic knowledge system of communities with remarkable persistence. The heroic plays a role in the understanding of cultural systems of meaning both in their longue durée and in their specific historical, social, and cultural manifestations and conditions. Recently, it has often been claimed that, after the disastrous two world wars, a ‘post-heroic’ age has begun, especially in Western European societies, and most prominently in Germany.2 In current discussions, scepticism towards and even a rejection of heroism predominate (Bohrer et al.); at the same time, the need for heroic leaders seems to persist, sometimes emerges anew, and is often taken for granted.3 But how can we explain these concurrent positions? “Whenever ‘heroes’ are admired, the question arises of ‘who is this needed by, and why’”...

Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies

Jan A Kozák

Chapter summarizing the various major theories connected to the theme of the Hero's Journey (or Heroic Narrative Pattern, Monomyth etc.), presenting the models and explanations for the emergence of the narrative pattern. Beside the most famous authors - Rank, Raglan, Campbell, Propp - the chapter adds three more sections, one on the work of Jean Joseph Goux, one on the topic of the female heroine (which is sadly missing in all the older authors) and one on the topic of initiation structure.

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“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." Bill Hicks

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