Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Hero with a Thousand Faces


Apparently my education has been lacking!  I never studied the Hero cycle  or monomyth of world mythology proposed by Joseph Campbell.  He wrote The Hero with a Thousand Face
This piece of work analyzes the fact that mythologies ,especially hero tales, follow a general pattern.  It looks like this if you were to graphically map it  out 



So, basically, George Lucas gives a lot of credit to Joseph Campbell.  Think about Star Wars.  Perfect example of the Hero's Journey.  George Lucas should give credit to Frank Herbert, as well.  I am sure Herbert was aware of this journey, or he was so ingrained in mythologies that it fell into place.  Anyway, Lucas' characters mimic the characters of Dune.  The planets and story line (at least of the first book) do as well.  I love Star Wars.  Always have, always wished I could be Princess Leia.  But Dune is deeper, darker, and lovelier.  I think that happens when the book is written before the movie, though.  Oh, and there is the whole brother-sister twin thing going on too.  I havent read Campbell yet.  I plan to.  I wonder if the brother sister twin thing is a part of it.  It is found in the book I am currently reading, too. ( The Game of Thrones)
Another movie which I LOVE follows this journey exactly.  Yes, The Matrix! I have many more thoughts and ideas concerning this topic.  I will add more later on.  


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