The Hero’s Journey
The questing, mythic hero is an ancient archetype of human culture. He provides the physical and moral courage which sets the standard for leadership in a society. Different from the tragic hero, the mythic hero’s experiences illustrate the spiritual life of a culture. his life path establishes the most important rituals of a civilization and serves as a great motivator for others. King Arthur is a familiar prototype of the hero, and Luke Skywalker is a derivative of King Arthur. The hero’s experiences often set him apart from others and make leadership a lonely responsibility.
- The hero is the personification of culture
- The hero is someone from who something has been taken
- A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than his or herself.
The questing hero exists in every culture in every country in every time of humanity. As an archetype, the hero represents a repeated, universal pattern of human behavior which has significant spiritual or psychological value to a culture. For additional information of on the hero, consult The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, a famous scholarly book of comparative mytholgoy, which was George Lucas’s inspiration for the writing of the Star Wars trilogy.
Open the following document for a slide show of the Hero’s Journey Stages: archetypes
10th Gifted World 