The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Campbell summarizes the hero’s journey, both as a diagram and as a written summary of the prior chapters. The hero leaves his home and crosses the “threshold of adventure” (245), where he finds a guard blocking his passage. The hero must conquer or pacify the guard, or else he will die and thereby cross the threshold. The hero faces a series of tests until the final test, which renders a trophy upon his success. His trophy might be marriage with the “goddess-mother of the world” (246), father atonement with the creator deity, or the attainment of divinity. Alternately, the hero may steal his prize.

The hero returns home, either with divine protection or in flight from disgruntled deities. He crosses the threshold again, leaving behind the mystical and redeeming the world with his prize, or “elixir,” from the beyond.

Mythologies use these elements differently, either by magnifying certain portions of the narrative, redacting others, fusing elements, or containing several hero journeys as part of a larger story. As the stories travel across time and geographic region, they inevitably change as they are retold. Certain story elements remain that confound new audiences, prompting “secondary interpretations” (247) invented to better incorporate those elements into the story.

Campbell returns to the myth of Raven in the belly of the whale as an illustration of this point. In the past, the primary image of the myth was Raven making fire in the belly of the whale, which symbolizes sexual union in the mystical world. This image was supplanted by that of the oil dripping into the lamp inside the room of the whale’s belly. The fire sticks remain in the altered version of the story but are not essential elements as they once were.

Societies also alter their retellings of myths when they become more secular, which often reduces the power of certain key elements of the original stories. For example, Hellenistic Greece and Imperial Rome reduced their gods into two-dimensional characters they used as civic figureheads and the subjects of romantic stories. Confucian myths in China are now told as lessons about civic duty. Likewise, Jesus Christ is figured as a wise, rural prophet who was unfairly executed.

Campbell asserts that mythology cannot be “biography, history, or science,” or else it loses its power (249). The key to these stories lies not in modern times but in the secrets of the past. Campbell describes the Roman Catholic rituals on Holy Saturday, which include the priest blessing holy water in the baptismal font. The priest concludes by dropping a candle three times into the water. This imagery has a regenerative element that reflects the sacred marriage of myth: “To enter into this font is to plunge into the mythological realm; to break the surface is to cross the threshold into the night-sea” (251).

When a baby is baptized with this water, the infant takes the hero’s journey as well, the intent of which is communion with God and a symbolic rebirth. This element of baptism is often lost now, replaced by an emphasis on baptism as a washing for original sin, a secondary interpretation. Campbell restates the importance of preserving the important elements of myths to unlock their grander purpose.