Summary Of Joseph Campbell's Theory: The Monomyth
3. JOSEPH CAMPBELL’S THEORY: THE MONOMYTH Joseph Campbell was born in New York 26thof March 1904 and died in Honolulu 30th of October 1987. When he was a student in the University of Columbia, he read some of the legends of King Arthur and found similar kinds of themes and motifs that occurred as well in the stories ofNative Americans that he had read as a child. Later in his life, he got acquainted with the theories of two renowned psychologists, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and the literary classics of Buddhism and Hinduism. (Joseph Campbell Foundation 2006.) Campbell’s theory of ‘the Monomyth’, a term he borrowed from James Joyce, was built on the work of a German anthropologist, Adolf Bastian. He was the one to first develop the
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(Brennan 2001.) Campbell used the ideas of Jung’s theory of archetypes to find “the common underlying structure behind all religion and myth” (Brennan 2001). In the theory that he calls the “Hero’s Journey” or the “Monomyth”, he argues that all stories, or rather, all heroes, are fundamentally the same, hence the name of the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, where he introduced the idea providing 28examples of myths from cultures all over the world and history (Campbell 1966). Joseph Campbell was writing after the Second World War. He admits the differences between hero myths and then stresses that his book nevertheless concentrates on the similarities in the hope of showing people that we are essentially the same. He wanted to improve “human mutual understanding” (Campbell 1966: viii) and he tries to do this by asking “Why is mythology everywhere the same, beneath its varieties of costume?” (Campbell 1966: 4). Segal (1987: 101) says that Campbell’s “answer is psychological: myths are the same because the mind, which creates them, is.” Essentially, what Campbell is trying to say, is that the myths and fairytales tell something of our subconscious. According to his theory (1966), the reason, why certain features in fairytales and myths are so common around the world, is that our minds are so alike to each other, even though we have such a multitude of different
(Brennan 2001.) Campbell used the ideas of Jung’s theory of archetypes to find “the common underlying structure behind all religion and myth” (Brennan 2001). In the theory that he calls the “Hero’s Journey” or the “Monomyth”, he argues that all stories, or rather, all heroes, are fundamentally the same, hence the name of the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, where he introduced the idea providing 28examples of myths from cultures all over the world and history (Campbell 1966). Joseph Campbell was writing after the Second World War. He admits the differences between hero myths and then stresses that his book nevertheless concentrates on the similarities in the hope of showing people that we are essentially the same. He wanted to improve “human mutual understanding” (Campbell 1966: viii) and he tries to do this by asking “Why is mythology everywhere the same, beneath its varieties of costume?” (Campbell 1966: 4). Segal (1987: 101) says that Campbell’s “answer is psychological: myths are the same because the mind, which creates them, is.” Essentially, what Campbell is trying to say, is that the myths and fairytales tell something of our subconscious. According to his theory (1966), the reason, why certain features in fairytales and myths are so common around the world, is that our minds are so alike to each other, even though we have such a multitude of different