A Hero with a Thousand Faces

In my travels, I've read Joseph Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces. I came upon it because it's a book that George Lucas has accredited with helping him write Star Wars. In the book, Joseph Campbell dissects myths to outline what he sees as a common structure.It was really interesting reading through and seeing how elements of this structure are present in modern epic stories. Below is a summary I borrowed from Wikipedia.

Chapter I: Departure

1. The Call to Adventure
The adventure begins with the hero receiving a call to action, such as a threat to the peace of the community, or the hero simply falls into or blunders into it. The call is often announced to the hero by another character who acts as a "herald". The herald, often represented as dark or terrifying and judged evil by the world, may call the character to adventure simply by the crisis of his appearance.

2. Refusal of the Call
In some stories, the hero initially refuses the call to adventure. When this happens, the hero may suffer somehow, and may eventually choose to answer, or may continue to decline the call.

3. Supernatural Aid
After the hero has accepted the call, he encounters a protective figure (often elderly) who provides special tools and advice for the adventure ahead, such as an amulet or a weapon.

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
The hero must cross the threshold between the world he is familiar with and that which he is not. Often this involves facing a "threshold guardian", an entity that works to keep all within the protective confines of the world but must be encountered in order to enter the new zone of experience.

5. The Belly of the Whale
The hero, rather than passing a threshold, passes into the new zone by means of rebirth. Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.

Chapter II: Initiation

1. The Road of Trials
Once past the threshold, the hero encounters a dream landscape of ambiguous and fluid forms. The hero is challenged to survive a succession of obstacles and, in so doing, amplifies his consciousness. The hero is helped covertly by the supernatural helper or may discover a benign power supporting him in his passage.

2. The Meeting with the Goddess
The ultimate trial is often represented as a marriage between the hero and a queenlike, or mother-like figure. This represents the hero's mastery of life (represented by the feminine) as well as the totality of what can be known. When the hero is female, this becomes a male figure.

3. Woman as the Temptress
His awareness expanded, the hero may fixate on the disunity between truth and his subjective outlook, inherently tainted by the flesh. This is often represented with revulsion or rejection of a female figure.

4. Atonement with the Father
The hero reconciles the tyrant and merciful aspects of the father-like authority figure to understand himself as well as this figure.

5. Apotheosis
The hero's ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness. Quite frequently the hero's idea of reality is changed; the hero may find an ability to do new things or to see a larger point of view, allowing the hero to sacrifice himself.

6. The Ultimate Boon
The hero is now ready to obtain that which he has set out, an item or new awareness that, once he returns, will benefit the society that he has left.

Chapter III: Return

1. Refusal of the Return
Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto his fellow man.

2. The Magic Flight
When the boon's acquisition (or the hero's return to the world) comes against opposition, a chase or pursuit may ensue before the hero returns.

3. Rescue from Without
The hero may need to be rescued by forces from the ordinary world. This may be because the hero has refused to return or because he is successfully blocked from returning with the boon. The hero loses his ego.

4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.

5. Master of the Two Worlds
Because of the boon or due to his experience, the hero may now perceive both the divine and human worlds.

6. Freedom to Live
The hero bestows the boon to his fellow man.