Joseph Campbell has done more than any other person to popularize the study of mythology. It is estimated that each of the six episodes of his 1988 PBS television series with Bill Moyers The Power of Myth was viewed by two and a half million people ("Joseph Campbell," Contemporary, par. 17). He wrote a number of books which have been influential. His four volume Masks of God examines myths worldwide and from the prehistoric past to contemporary times ("Joseph Campbell," Contemporary, pars. 9-13). Campbell's first solo work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, compares hero myths worldwide identifying in them a common structure, which Campbell called the "monomyth" ("Joseph Campbell," Contemporary, par. 6). George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars movies, claimed in an interview with Wolfgang Saxon of the New York Times, "If it hadn't been for him [Campbell] . . . it's possible I would still be trying to write 'Star Wars' today" (qtd. in "Joseph Campbell," Contemporary, par. 19).

The Hero with a Thousand Faces explores the similarities between world mythologies in "what Campbell called a monomyth, the single underlying story that all the myths tell" ("Joseph Campbell," Contemporary, par. 6), taking the word 'monomyth' from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (Campbell, Hero 30). In the monomyth, Campbell links creation, fertility, and hero myths together. In Campbell's view, the commonalities of the creation and fertility myths form the "cosmogonic cycle" (the world cycle, the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life), which are revealed to or discovered by the hero as he/she succeeds in his/her struggles and restores to the hero his/her relation to his/her world (Campbell, Hero 38).

Statue
Greek Female Statue opens in new window in the Athens Archaeological
Museum, Photo by De'Lara Stephens, 2006
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell outlines three broad stages of the monomyth, discussing elements common to each stage (Campbell ix-x):
  1. Departure
    2.
    1. The Call to Adventure
    2. Refusal of the Call
    3. Supernatural Aid
    4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
    5. The Belly of the Whale

  2. Initiation
    3.
    1. The Road of Trials
    2. The Meeting with the Goddess
    3. Woman as the Temptress
    4. Atonement with the Father
    5. Apotheosis
    6. the Ultimate Boon

  3. Return
    4.
    1. Refusal of the Return
    2. The Magic Flight
    3. Rescue from Without
    4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
    5. Master of the Two Worlds
    6. Freedom to Live

George Lucas consciously had the monomyth in mind during the creation of Star Wars. For example, the call to adventure occurs in the first Star Wars movie Episode 4 when Luke triggers the distress call from Princess Leia. He receives supernatural aid from Obi Wan Kenobi, who is a master of the mysterious "force." Luke crosses the first threshold when he leaves his home planet on the Millennium Falcon.

While writers like Lucas may deliberately model their work on the monomyth, Campbell believes that ancient writers of hero myths naturally followed the monomyth in an unconscious process. While not every myth contains every element of the monomyth, the general pattern remains.

For the purposes of our study, we will use a simplified version of Campbell's monomyth based on a project by The Office of Resources for International and Area Studies (ORIAS) at the University of California Berkeley. This 11 stage version of the monomyth plots a simple cycle of events and circumstances that describe the hero's journey.