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The Hero With A Thousand Faces Sparknotes

1456 Words6 Pages

Ashley Greene
Professor Bailey
HUM 130
19 March 2023
Reflection on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces and Other Theories Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was a famous mythologist who created many of the common theories mythology students learn today. One of his most famous contributions to this field was a book titled The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This book explains his most known theory, the Hero’s Journey (Thury and Devinney). This literature pattern, or monomyth (CornerTalker), as Campbell calls it, describes the journey heroes in myths, literature, and everyday life, experience grow from (Moyers & Company). The title of the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces gives clues to the meaning and importance of the Hero’s Journey. While …show more content…

People follow, or ignore, the calls of this Journey throughout the course of their life (Moyers & Company). While I am still young, and therefore have not experienced the later parts of my Journey, I can see how the Hero’s Journey is part of my life. One of the most prominent examples of the Hero’s Journey in my life is my search, and eventual transition, to a four-year college. As I look for and eventually move to a university, I am leaving the “Ordinary World,” or Act one of the Hero’s Journey, and entering the “Special World,” or Act two, that of college (Nuvotech Limited www.nuvotech.co.uk). Another example of the Hero’s Journey in my life can be found in the “Call to Adventure” section of the Journey. In this stage, the hero discovers what their reason for adventuring into the unknown or “Special World” is (Nuvotech Limited www.nuvotech.co.uk). I believe I have already experienced this stage of my life, thankfully, and have an idea of what I want to pursue during my Journey. After being a tutor and working at a children’s dance studio, I realized that what I wanted to do most with my life was teaching. I enjoy helping the students understand concepts and seeing them learn and grow over the months that I teach …show more content…

One of Joseph Campbell's main concepts he emphasized was how the Hero’s Journey applies to more than just fictional characters, but to ourselves (Moyers & Company). If you can look at your life and accomplishments through that lens, your life’s trajectory makes more sense. As a sixteen-year-old working my way through high school and two-year-college, I know that I will experience many challenges, both physical and mental before I reach the end of my Hero’s Journey. But I learned that I must not hesitate from a beneficial opportunity, even if it means I will face fear, because the only way to bring back the reward, is to answer the

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