Step 1~12: the Hero’s Journey

Psychology 251
Step 1~12: The Hero’s Journey
Student: Xinyuan Zhang
August 14, 2012
Introduction
In the book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell it shows us a model of how a hero becomes a real hero. There are include twelve steps which are
  1. Uncomfortable/New Environment
  2. Call to the Adventure
  3. Refusal of the call/Fear of change
  4. Meeting with a mentor to overcome fear
  5. Crossing the first threshold
  6. Test “allies” and “enemies”
  7. Approach – training
  8. Ordeal – Facing of the fear
  9. Reward – if you survive
  10. Road Back – come back from the “trip”
  11. Resurrection – final big test
  12. Return with the Ultimate Boon
Campbell explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, which Campbell called the monomyth. Now, let’s us follow me to see what the twelve steps exactly are and compare the differences between them we may learn a lot of new knowledge for the hero’s journey. It is a very interesting process of studying.
Step 1: New Environment that I meet
There is one difficulty that I can always remember it is my first time came to America. It taught me a lot of new stuffs and make me grew up very quickly. It has a big influence for my future life and thinking.
When I was only seventeen, I came here by myself. This place is totally new for me. At the beginning, I feel like there is nothing that I know. New people, new life styles, new language, and new culture they are different from my country. During that time, I was trying to adapt everything as soon as possible I found out a lot of difficulties. Some of American food I did not like, and I also missed Chinese food very much. My family is also not here. When I met these kinds of troubles, I just can face to them by myself. No one I can tell, so I need to grow up to try to solve those problems very quickly. I try to begin to eat American...