Heros Journey

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was Athens not having to send tributes to Crete to be killed by the minotaur anymore. Theseus got his Return With The Elixir when his father had killed himself and he took over Athens and became king. Some would say Theseus’ story was almost spot on with Campbell’s outline.

The Jungle Book is a good example of Campbell’s outline of the hero’s journey because it also follows the outline closely. Mowgli, a “man cub” as the animals in the jungle call him, went through his Refusal Of The Call when he didn’t want to leave the jungle after Shere Khan had threatened to kill him if he stayed. He didn’t want to go to where he belonged because his whole life was spent in the jungle and he wanted it to stay that way. Mowgli had two Meeting With The Mentors happen, The first time was when Bagheera decided he would be the one who took him to the man village, the second one was when Baloo saved him from Kaa and took care of him, but also showed him where the man village was. Both of them played big roles in Mowgli’s life. Mowgli’s Reward after killing Shere Khan was being allowed to remain in the jungle since he was no longer being hunted by anybody. His Return With The Elixir came just after he defeated Shere Khan when the elephants decided to help Mowgli put out the fire he had started while fighting Shere Khan; when the elephants helped they saved the jungle from becoming a giant ash pit. After that Mowgli lived on to be a happy little hero.

A journey is the whole life of the heroes. It’s the conflicts and resolutions, the deaths and the births. A hero’s journey is in many stories we have today, just like I showed you in “Theseus”, The Jungle Book, and Big Fish. These stories may be super different in the way they are written, but they are really similar in the way that they follow steps of the hero’s journey.