Preview

"The Heroes Journey vs. the Wizard of Oz Essay Example

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1116 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"The Heroes Journey vs. the Wizard of Oz Essay Example
"The Heroes Journey"

The Heroes Journey is a point in one's life that changes a person forever. This journey one undergoes follows a timeless theme called the monomyth. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, shows that throughout history every culture follows the common myth of the Hero. The key components in the "Heroes Journey" have a major impact on storytelling. The Heroes Journey has 12 basic stages; in which guide on through any certain. The Journey's 12 basic steps consist of , 1) ordinary world 2) Call to adventure3) Refusal of the Call 4) meeting with Mentor 5) crossing the first threshold 6) Tests allies and enemies the come across 7) Approach to the Inmost cave 8) ordeal 9) reward 10) the road back 110 Resurrection and finally 12) Return with Elixir. These timeless patterns have alson helped create the ideas for the most classic movies. The Wizard of Oz has been drastically influence by the major theme of the monomyth in a circular narrative. In Campbell's discovery the ideas of the story is just part of the endless variation of an example of the Heroes Journey. The story begins in the world of the innocence. Dorothy orphaned as a child, lives on a gray open farmland with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Dorothy's dog, Toto, always toyed around with their neighbor, Ms Gulch, making her unwelcome to this character. After calling the Sheriff to get Toto to stay out of her garden, Toto bites Ms Gluch. Toto is taken away to be put to sleep, and although Dorothy begs and pleads none of the adults help. Here is where Dorothy's call for the quest ties in to place. Soon Dorothy's journey will begin. So overtaken with emotion she flea's her home steals Toto back and decides to come home, as a tornado is approaching. Although Dorothy tried to enter the shed Toto runs in to the home with Dorothy to follow. Here Dorothy accepts her call, the house Toto and Dorothy get carried away to a new land, the Land of Oz. As she awakens she has found a land of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Joseph Campbell was a famous scholar that created the “monomyth,” which can be described as the foundation of many of our modern hero tales. The monomyth, also known as the hero’s journey, generally follows three main portions: the departure, the initiation, and the return. These three portions have different steps they follow. The steps are seen in books, myths, religion, fairy tales, but specifically it can be seen the movie, Journey 2: Mysterious island. Journey 2 represents the monomyth by demonstrating the departure, the initiation, and the return.…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Campbell and others who take the psychological approach to myth, see the heroic monomyth as a universal mirror of the individual human’s psychological journey through life from birth to individuation, or wholeness. The miraculous conception and birth of the hero speak to the awakening in our lives to the quest for Self and wholeness that lies ahead. The quest itself happens to be the process by which the hero, representing the psychological voyager, and to move beyond personal and historical limitations. The hero, sometimes after an initial refusal, accepts the call to adventure. This acceptance represents our own acceptance of the inner call to journey into the unknown in search of Self. As the mythical hero’s quest requires overcoming several…

    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Hero's Journey

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I am convinced that you know what the hero’s journey is, only don’t you know it by name. The Hero’s Journey or Monomyth is a formula or a structure presented by Joseph Campbell in his book called The Hero of a Thousand Faces (1949). In this book, Campbell describes twelve stages of a narrative, and comes up with a conclusion that in great and successful narratives, the characters are all the same. Therefore, these stages can be applied in (almost) every narrative, from cinema or literature.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Every story needs a hero, right? For centuries authors and poets have included this essential character into their work. Without knowing literature has been seldom following the same archetype, The Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell discovered that most stories follow this pattern which is why he dubbed it the monomyth. Through years of studying he found that this popular motif is made up of ten basic steps that a hero follows through a story. Well known film writer and director George Lucas molded the film Star Wars around Campbell’s monomyth not only with intent but quite distinctively. Lucas is not the only one doing this in Hollywood either, many screenwriters and directors have caught on to this including Andrew Stanton as he depicted his version of the monomyth in Finding Nemo. This animated film follows the archetype laid out in Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.…

    • 2154 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Step Not Taken” by Paul D’Angelo is a short story that demonstrates the archetype of a monomyth, a hero’s journey. The three stages of a monomyth are separation, struggle or initiation and return and reintegration. This essay discusses how these three stages are demonstrated in “The Step Not Taken”, by examining the narrative and other stories featuring a monomyth archetype.…

    • 627 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A hero’s journey is a pattern in which the character goes on an exciting or dangerous experience in which the person goes out and goes through intense obstacles to achieve a great deed. The hero’s journey is broken up into 12 stages made by Joseph Campbell. One of the many examples of this pattern is Homer’s “The Odyssey”.…

    • 199 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hercules Hero's Journey

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Timeless classics throughout the ages are known for their plots and concepts, however these classics tend to follow a similar plot. This monomyth is called the Hero’s Journey, where a similar plot is used every time to create a story proven to be successful. A great example of this would be Disney’s Hercules, a story of the demigod Hercules who loses his powers and must redeem himself by becoming a true hero. With godlike strength, he defeats Hades and proves himself a true hero by being compassionate and chivalrous, and showing anyone can be hero regardless of if they have strength. The plot of Hercules follows the three phases of the Hero’s Journey closely.…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    as the judges are ignorant of the outside world youth, only take note of higher sources of knowledge, let cops do obscenity things just cuase they are cops, have very one sided views, would put someone in jail for a little small thing…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This is when the hero learns the rules of his new world. They may endure tests of strengths, meeting new friends, and come face to face with foes. The seventh step, Approach is when setbacks occur causing the hero to try a new approach or adopt new ideas. The eighth step, Ordeal is the hero’s experience with a major hurdle or obstacle, life or death crisis. The ninth step Reward is after surviving, the hero earns their reward or accomplishes their goal. The tenth step The Road Back is when the hero begins the journey back to his ordinary life. Resurrection the eleventh step is the final test where everything is at stake and the hero must use everything they have learned. The twelfth and final step, Return with Elixir is where the hero brings all the knowledge back to the ordinary world, where it is applied to all who remain there (Vogler, Christopher). Those are the 12 steps of a Hero’s Journey and how a character goes through them whether in film or a story. Many people have adopted the Hero’s Journey and 12 steps. Books have been written following the 12 steps as well as professors and educators using the 12 steps in life and…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Film Noir Analysis

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The most widely-used and accredited outline of the hero’s journey was created by Joseph Campbell in his The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell, a seminal figure in the world of mythology, plots out the points through which every heroic character of literature has trodden. The women of film noir can be found to place their feet in these holes. Taking one for example- the quintessential femme fatale of Double Indemnity, Phyllis Dietrichson. According to Campbell, the hero begins in the ordinary world, then has a call to adventure that brings him to the extraordinary world- he may rejects the call and has to ask a mentor for assistance. After this optional meeting, the hero crosses to the threshold of the extraordinary world, then descends into it where he finds tests, allies, and enemies. After this, he approaches the innermost test, after that is the ultimate boon- when he has succeeded. After this, any of a few stages may happen, but the hero sometimes comes to an untimely death after they return to their home, or otherwise comes to a feeling of failure (Campbell.) Phyllis starts out as a typical married woman, and the call of money brings her to the realization that it will be necessary for her to kill her husband in order to collect his life insurance money. She finds an ally in Neff, an insurance adjuster who agrees to help her kill her husband and scheme the system in order…

    • 1421 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In almost all of the stories that have been written, there is a journey that the character undertakes to become whole and balanced, also known as the heroic journey. In the first stage of the journey, the departure, the hero leaves their known world and begins their adventure. After the hero undergoes the departure, they then move on to the next stage, the initiation, where they are put through tests and venture into the world of hero or magic or the previously unknown. The third and final stage is that of the return, where the hero must return back to his home. A perfect example of someone that underwent the heroic journey is Odysseus from the epic poem, The Odyssey by Homer because he had undergone a journey that included a departure, initiation, and return.…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Essay On Heros Journey

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In every hero's journey that I read in the past the heroes has to be a male there is never a female hero, Joseph Campbell talked a little bit about the heroine, which is a female hero, and most people don't relays that women also can be heroes, the thing that caught my attention in Katniss the main hero in the hunger game movie series is that she was a great example of a hero not because it was the only hero journey move that we watched in this class that included a female hero. in the hanger game even though the hero was a girl but she was a great example of a hero she was a hero by the sense of the word, she wasn't only a great fighter in front of a strong males she also volunteered for her little sister that got chosen in the first place in an act of heroic self-sacrifice, one of the main roles of the game is that it…

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Beowulf

    • 1262 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Upon reading or watching the epic tales of heroes, it is easy to overlook the connection they all share. From his writings in, A Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell brings to light the journey of a hero in “the rights of passage: separation – initiation – return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth.” (Campbell, 30) The epic tale of a hero follows the universal pattern of Campbell’s monomyth beginning with the separation, or call to adventure - leaving one’s family, friends, or tribe. Followed by the initiation of the crossing the threshold into the world unknown where he encounters trials and is victorious. S/he can then return home with a “boon” to aid and/or restore his/her world. According to Campbell, “[o]ther [monomyths] string a number of independent cycles into a single series (as in the Odyssey).” (Campbell, 246) In Beowulf, the poet has sent Beowulf on his journey of the monomyth. However, like Csmpbell has written, Beowulf’s journey consist of three miniature monomyths that can be connected into one hero’s journey that take several decades of his life to complete.…

    • 1262 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Lion King - Hero's Journey

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The statement a hero’s journey can be self-explanatory. One can think of a physical journey traveled by a person. It can also be interpreted as the trials and tribulations that a person must overcome to grow. Joseph Campbell’s theory of “The Hero’s Journey” can be either of those things. It is a basic pattern that is found in many narratives from around the world. Campbell describes this an occurring cycle with three phases: Departure, Initiation and Return. In “The Lion King” Simba embarks on a journey from a lion’s cub to a full-grown lion with many trials in between.…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Epic Hero Essay

    • 2934 Words
    • 12 Pages

    As an epic hero the first hero journey step, The Call to Adventure, acts as one of most important steps, as it begins ones strenuous expedition towards victory and triumph.…

    • 2934 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays