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Comparing The Hero's Journey In The Hero With A Thousand Faces By Joseph Campbell

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In Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he writes about the many different stages of the hero’s journey. He claims that the hero’s journey, or the monomyth, has existed as a guideline for authors and storytellers for centuries. The authors of these stories may have consciously utilized the monomyth, or the stories may be so commonly used that it became the natural way of telling a story about a hero. The monomyth is organized into three different phases: the initiation, separation, and return. Within these phases are the different encounters the hero has. This paper will discuss how the heroes Moses and Odysseus follow the path of the hero’s job journey in their respective stories. Both heroes existed long ago, before stories …show more content…

An important aspect of the hero’s journey is readers and viewers seeing someone who is not a god, overcoming obstacles and being a hero to their people. This hope it brings the audience is why the monomyth has persisted across place and time. The hero’s flaws and mistakes are equally as important as their successes, because it reminds the audience that they are human. In modern times, Moses and Odysseus are not always seen as heroes. Teachers and scholars are finding that as society has changed, opinions on what makes a person a hero have also changed. In addition, not everyone saw Moses and Odysseus as heroes when their stories were originally told. Moses, more so than Odysseus, shares many traits with a failed hero, but the author of Exodus still presents him as a successful hero. This overlap between failure and success is why it is important to look at the two stories and compare the heroes’ roles in their stories. At the end, what makes a hero a hero is the obstacles they overcome in order to learn and help …show more content…

He has a substantial relationship with Athena, who assists him in multiple situations. Add more here. During Odysseus’ travels home, him and his crew receive help from Aeolus, the ruler of the winds. After the crew sets themselves back in their travels, Aeolus refuses to help them anymore, showing the division between humans and gods in this world. Along the same lines, some of the gods play a huge part in keeping Odysseus from returning home. Circe, for example, turns his crew into pigs. Odysseus must battle Circe in order to get her to turn his crew back into men. Even after this, Circe delays his journey by keeping him on her island as her lover. In addition, the gods do not play as significant a role in helping Odysseus as they

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