Normally, it takes me quite some time to pick up a second book by the same author, but I happened to visit the library right after finishing The Power of Myth and managed to find The Hero With A Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell’s work on the idea of the monomyth.

The monomyth, to put it simply, is the idea that all myths have the same basic adventure structure with a few variants. The structure goes like this: The hero is brought to the threshold of adventure. After encountering the presence that guards the threshold and either defeating or conciliating with it, he goes into the kingdom of the dark (or dies). The world beyond the threshold is unfamiliar but filled with strangely intimate forces, some which threaten and some which provide aid. After travelling, the hero undergoes one last, supreme, ordeal and gains his reward (either through marriage, recognition by a father figure, theft of gift, etc). When he returns, either under the blessing of the powers from the other world or pursued by them, he re-emerges from the other world to his own, this time with the reward he has gained.

This, of course, is a summary of the summary – the actual summary is about a page. And the actual explanations and examples of each component of the hero’s journey take up part one (and the longest part) of the book. I don’t think all myths are adventure stories – looking at the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification of folk tales (some of the tales here seem to fall under folk tales as well), it seems like tales of the magic/trickster fox, realistic tales, etc may not fall under here or fit in perfectly.

The theory behind this analysis is Jungian in nature – as you can see by the dreams that he also cites to argue that these motifs are present in all humans – but I’m not totally convinced by it. While I agree that certain tropes are present in all cultures, I don’t know if I agree with his conclusions, especially since some of his examples can be a little out there (my issue with his citations of Christianity/Christian stories is largely the same as the ones I had in The Power of Myth).

After finishing his exploration of the hero’s journey, Campbell goes on to explore the topics of the cosmogonic cycle (part two) and the transformations of the hero (part three). The book ends with a short discussion about myth and society. To be honest, the second two parts didn’t really interest me – I was much more interested in his breakdown of the hero’s journey.

Toward’s the end, it’s pretty clear that Campbell wants to use this book as a call to action for people to come under his view of the world. But as I’ve said, since I’m not a Jungian, this call didn’t really move me. I found that the breakdown of the hero’s journey to be much more interesting from a story point of view. To me, the fact that similar tropes exist in adventure stories around the world just means that people from different cultures are drawn to the same types of stories and it would be useful for me to know the elements of a successful story so that I can write my own.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces isn’t easy to read, especially if you’re not into the Jungian aspect of things. But the breakdown of the hero’s journey is useful for anyone interested in writing fiction and the stories mentioned in the book are fascinating – not to mention that they show how the same trope can be adapted to different cultures. If you’re interested in writing, I’d recommend just reading the first part.