Campbell’s Monomyth: The Quest for the Mythic Hero – If you’re interested in exploring the monomyth in detail, check out Campbell’s Monomyth: The Quest for the Mythic Hero. This 72-page guide takes you through the key elements in the monomyth and presents them clearly and thoroughly.
Elaborating on the Theme of Transformation
by Reg Harris
The Hero’s Journey: Four, Six, Twelve or Seventeen
Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey model, the monomyth, is described as containing between 4 and 17 stages. Ironically, perhaps the most famous model of the monomyth isn’t even Campbell’s, but the “Writer’s Journey,” a 12-stage adaptation of Campbell created by screenwriter Christopher Vogler to help editors evaluate scripts at Disney Studios. (For more information on Vogler’s “Writer’s Journey,” see our article “Campbell goes to Hollywood.”)
Campbell, himself, lists 17 stages in “The Adventure of the Hero,” part one of his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). However, in Chapter 4 of Hero, he summarizes the monomyth in a chart (right) that shows the journey in four stages–Call to Adventure, Tests, Flight and Elixir–with other elements listed as benefits or possibilities within those stages. To complicate matters, his summary paragraph in that chapter actually mentions six stages in the Hero’s Journey: Setting Forth, Threshold of Adventure, Road of Tests and Trials, Nadir/Abyss, Return and Rebirth into the World.
So which is it: 4, 6, 12 or 17? The answer is none of them and all of them. The Hero’s Journey is so complex and variable that no single model can contain all of its permutations and contingencies. Campbell, himself, makes the point clearly in Hero:
The changes rung on the simple scale of the monomyth defy description. Many tales isolate and greatly enlarge upon one or two of the typical elements of the full cycle (test motif, flight motif, abduction of the bride), others string a number of independent cycles into a single series (as in The Odyssey). Differing characters or episodes can become fixed, or a single element can reduplicate itself and reappear under many changes (p. 246).
A Shift in Perspective: From Monomyth to Metamyth
What all myths have to deal with is transformations of consciousness of one kind or another. You have been thinking one way. You now have to think in a different way.
Joseph Campbell, “The Power of Myth”
Given the truth that no single model of the monomyth or Hero’s Journey can possibly accommodate all of myth’s contingencies and permutations, can we consolidate the complexities of Campbell’s work into a simple, general pattern that can contain all of his elements? I believe we can, if we shift our perspective from the mythological monomyth to a psychological “metamyth.” In this article, I propose an integrated model of the monomyth which focuses on its fundamental stages while still addressing its critical contingencies and central thematic elements.
Our first step in this endeavor is to realize that the process Campbell outlines in the monomyth is not really mythological. It’s psychological. It describes the transformation of consciousness we all go through as we navigate life’s challenges and points of passage. Campbell made this point in his conversations with Bill Moyers (The Power of Myth), stating, “What all myths have to deal with is transformations of consciousness of one kind or another. You have been thinking one way. You now have to think in a different way” (1988, p. 126).
Hero myths are metaphors for this transformational process, not examples of it. I’m reminded of the Zen saying, “Don’t confuse the finger that points at the moon with the moon.” We should not confuse hero myths with the psychological process they describe. This is why we can’t always make a literal comparison between the monomyth and the everyday particulars of individual hero myths. They are two entirely different perspectives. The monomyth is transcendent, and the hero myths are temporal. The monomyth is spiritual, and the hero myths mundane.
A Transformation of Consciousness
To understand Campbell’s monomyth, we must expand our thinking beyond myths, the metaphors for the process, and focus, instead, on the process itself: the transformation of consciousness.
The point is that no model of a psychological process can possibly account for all of the local variables in myth. This is why we struggle when we assume that all hero myths will follow Campbell’s model. As Robert Segal writes, “While Campbell continually cites scores of hero myths to illustrate individual parts of his pattern, he does not apply his full pattern to even one myth” (1990, p. xxii).
The truth is, Campbell never intended the monomyth to be simply a heuristic for understanding and analyzing hero myths. He fully understood that the process he described transcended myth and was really a metaphor for our journey through life. As he writes in The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero’s passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they may stand along the scale… The individual has only to discover his own position with reference to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting walls (1949, p. 121).
To create a universal or integrated model of the monomyth, we must expand our thinking beyond myths, the metaphors for the process, and focus, instead, on the process itself: the transformation of consciousness. With transformation as our organizing principle, the elements in the monomyth fall into a logical hierarchy and sequence of stages, contingencies and benefits.
Stages or Elements within Stages
To begin our quest for an inclusive model of the monomyth, we need to establish some guidelines. First, we need to understand that Campbell describes two different kinds of stages. There are fundamental stages (green in the diagram). These are experiences that are a part of every journey and that change the hero in some way. There are also contingent stages (yellow in the diagram). These experiences, while important, don’t necessarily change the hero nor are they part of every journey. With the stages differentiated, we need to identify elements that are not stages (i.e., not experiences), but benefits or conditions the hero realizes because of an experience (blue in the diagram). (Click here for a table prioritizing the stages by level.)
Here are some examples to illustrate my point. The “Call to Adventure” is a fundamental stage because it is a part of every journey and it changes the hero (disrupts his or her life). On the other hand, “The Call Refused,” while it is one of the most important elements in the journey, is not fundamental because it is not a part of every journey: that is, though most heroes resist the Call, not all of them refuse it. Similarly, “Supernatural Aid,” the “Ultimate Boon” and “Master of the Two Worlds” are not stages, but benefits or conditions that result from successfully completing a stage.
Now, using these guidelines, let’s examine the 17 stages of Campbell’s original monomyth.
Fundamental Stages
A careful look at the 17 stages shows us that only seven of them are actually fundamental stages, that is experiences that are part of every journey and that change or develop the hero in some way (again, see my table for more explanation):
1. The Call to Adventure
2. The First Threshold
3. The Road of Trials
4. Meeting with the Goddess
5. Atonement with the Father
6. Apotheosis
7. The Return Threshold
We can expand and improve this outline if we incorporate the material from Campbell’s summary paragraph (Hero, p. 245-246). First, Campbell includes a Return stage in his summary, a stage which he only implies in Part One, so we will add that. Second, in his summary, Campbell combines the journey’s critical challenges—The Meeting with the Goddess, The Woman as Temptress and Atonement with the Father—into a single stage, the Abyss/Nadir.
This is a much more reasonable arrangement because the polar aspects of the male and female archetypes, representing the poles of the eternal and the temporal, are really two aspects of one system (see diagram below right). And each of those two archetypes has its own set of poles. The female archetype, for example, represented by the Earth Mother, contains the Goddess and Temptress, while the male archetype, represented by the Sky Father, contains the God and the Ogre.
In both cases, Earth Mother or Sky Father, the aspect experienced by the hero depends on the hero’s level of consciousness when he encounters the archetype. An open, receptive attitude will evoke the positive or nurturing aspect of the archetype. A resistant, defensive attitude will evoke the negative or destructive aspect. Because these archetypes are complimentary and mutually-defining, they belong in a single stage.
After we make these changes — adding the “Return” and combining polar aspects of stages into the “Abyss” — our transformational model of the journey takes on this seven-stage form (with Campbell’s other stages and key elements subordinated within these stages):
1. The Call to Adventure
– The Call Refused (contingency)
– Supernatural Aid (benefit)
2. The First Threshold
– (Threshold Guardians)
– The Belly of the Whale (contigency)
3. The Road of Trials
– Mentor may appear
– Helpers may appear
4. The Abyss/Nadir
– Meeting with the Goddess
– Woman as Temptress (contigency)
– Atonement with the Father
5. The Apotheosis
– (Consolidation)
– The Ultimate Boon (benefit)
6. The Return Threshold
– Refusal of the Return (contingency)
– Magic Flight (contigency)
– Rescue from Without (contigency)
7. The Return
– Master of the Two Worlds (condition)
– Freedom to Live (condition)
The Psychological Model of the Monomyth
We are not quite finished, however. Because we are describing a psychological transformation, we need a stage where the transformation manifests itself in life. This happens between the death-and-rebirth in the Abyss and the consolidation of meaning in the Apotheosis, so we add the “Transformation” as Stage 5. Thus, when we express these seven stages psychologically rather than metaphorically and include a stage for the transformation brought on by the journey, we have this basic, eight stage outline of the process Campbell was describing in his monomyth:
1. The Call to Adventure: a disruption, in ourselves or in our world, makes us aware of limitations, contradictions or potentials in our lives.
2. The First or Exit Threshold: We must decide to address this disruption and commit ourselves to resolving the limitations, incongruities and inconsistencies in our lives.
3. Road of Trials: We experience a series of challenges and temptations that, (1) breakdown our old, ineffective ways of believing and acting to make way for the new, and (2) prepare us for the greater challenges that will follow.
4. Abyss/Nadir: With our old meaning structure shattered, we enter a void while we wait for new meanings and structure to emerge. This death-and-rebirth experience is completed with a revelation, which turns the chaotic void into a fertile void and we are reborn.
5. Transformation: With the Revelation pointing the way, we experience transformation into our new life: new attitudes, new beliefs, new behaviors—all arising from our expanded, more-inclusive consciousness.
6. Apotheosis: After the turmoil of the journey and the rebirth of a new self, we take time to reflect and consolidate our experience by building new meanings for our life, meanings that will project us into a greater, more fulfilling future.
7. The Return Threshold: There is point at which we must question our ability or willingness to return to our former lives. Have we transcended not just ourselves, but our community as well? Will our community be willing or able to accept our change and incorporate our insights and greater understandings, or will they reject and, perhaps, vilify us as a threat to the community’s stability?
8. The Return: With our new status within our community negotiated and resolved, we are ready to resume life at a higher level of consciousness and responsibility, ready to contribute our new skills and understandings to the community’s well-being.
Benefits of this “General Human Formula”
This model, because it focuses on fundamental stages and groups elements based on the transformational process Campbell was describing, has a number of benefits:
1. It is more easily applied to both literature and life. With its focus on the psychological process of transformation, the model can help us explore and analyze all narratives, whether those narratives are fictional or real.
2. It is easier to understand and teach. It is simpler than the 17-stage model, and it more clearly illustrates the psychological process behind the monomyth. It organizes the stages in a coherent, hermeneutic sequence so that understanding the whole (the process) gives us a broad perspective for understanding the parts (the stages), and understanding the parts gives us a deeper insight into the whole.
3. It is a more practical guide to understanding and navigating our own journeys in life, which was, after all, Campbell’s primary goal in presenting the monomyth. To repeat Campbell’s words, the purpose of the hero’s journey is to “serve as a general pattern” which will “assist the [individual] past his restricting walls.”
References
Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
Campbell, J. with B. Moyers. (1988). The Power of Myth: with Bill Moyers. Flowers, B. (editor). New York: Doubleday.
Segal, R. A. (1990). In Quest of the Hero (1st ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
Copyright © 2017 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this article in any form or in part or in whole, without the expressed written permission of the author is prohibited. Posting this article or any part thereof to the Internet in any form without the expressed written permission of the author is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and strictly prohibited. If you would like a PDF copy of this article to use in your class or work, please contact Reg Harris.
