The Many Faces of the Hero: Why We Misunderstand the Monomyth

It sometimes seems like anyone who considers themselves an intellectual has something to say about Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The monomyth, or the universal concept of the hero’s journey, is often presented as the only possible plot structure, one that no author can deviate from. But why is Campbell’s main work so often oversimplified? How is the idea of the monomyth connected to Jung’s archetypes, Aristotle’s Poetics, and the initiation rituals of ancient tribes? And why do modern scholars criticize Campbell? Let’s dig in.

The Monomyth in Pop Culture

August 2017. The rap battle between Slava KPSS and a certain Miron, rumored to be an Oxford graduate, is being called the cultural event of the year. Even the conservative Channel One covered it. In the third round, Oxxxymiron builds his performance around references to Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Campbell is known as the creator of the “monomyth,” or the hero’s journey concept. Today, it’s used everywhere stories are told—thrillers, screenwriting, journalism, marketing. The fact that a rapper uses it says a lot, right? Yet most people who use the monomyth in their work see The Hero with a Thousand Faces as nothing more than an extended manual on storytelling.

The Allure of Simplicity

The book’s dizzying success is due to the stunning simplicity of its concept:

“Whenever we try to understand the complex arguments of Thomas Aquinas or suddenly grasp the meaning of a strange Eskimo tale, we always encounter the same story—ever-changing in form, but surprisingly constant.”

At first glance, this seems to be the main idea: every story ever created fits into a single structure. According to Campbell, every plot features someone living their ordinary life. One day, something compels the hero to leave their well-trodden path and seek adventure. Along the way, the protagonist faces trials and dangers. In the end, they inevitably defeat the dragon/demon/wizard, achieve their goal, and return home as a hero—bringing back an abstract trophy that will help their community.

It’s important to note that the “journey” can be literal or metaphorical. In modern cinema, the monomyth works just as well with internal conflicts. In other words, the monomyth is about the hero’s desire or need to achieve something, escape someone or something, and so on. The actions they take to do this are their journey.

Why the Monomyth Became So Popular

The monomyth’s popularity is also due to its compatibility with the classic three-act structure, first described by Aristotle in his Poetics. A lucky coincidence? Not really. If you dig deeper, you find that Campbell’s real point is that this structure is rooted in the human psyche—specifically, in how our minds process life events.

This is closely tied to archetypes, which, according to Jung, are symbols that make up the collective unconscious. In the early 20th century, the Swiss psychiatrist used this idea to explain the similarities between myths from different cultures. Unsurprisingly, Campbell’s work is steeped in Jungian and Freudian ideas. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell cites examples from Freud and Jung, who used mythological images to interpret their patients’ dreams.

For example, the book mentions a young man who had conflicts with his mother. He dreamed of a gate leading to the “land of sheep,” with a woman standing by the gate, showing him the way. Campbell interprets this as the subconscious using universal mythological images to talk about personal problems—the land of sheep representing the young man’s dependence on his mother’s opinion.

But what does this have to do with the hero’s journey? On the same page, Campbell describes a dream of a young woman whose close friend had recently died of tuberculosis. Fearing she might be infected, she dreams of a bloody sunset and a “knight in black” who invites her to follow him toward the sunset.

According to Campbell, both dreams show that it’s not just about mythological images and the collective unconscious. The hero’s journey itself is an archetype of life changes. In both dreams, someone calls the dreamer to unknown territory—symbolizing the “departure” stage of the monomyth, the moment of leaving the familiar world for the unknown, facing trials and the “dragon.” For the young man, it’s resolving conflicts with his mother; for the young woman, it’s coming to terms with death and loss.

Campbell argues that myths worldwide follow the “status quo – departure – return” structure not just because audiences like these stories, but because the human subconscious processes life’s challenges in this mythological way. Freud and Jung’s research supports this. Whether this perception developed with culture or is rooted in biology remains unknown.

The Monomyth in Everyday Life

The hero’s journey can be applied to even the smallest human actions. Imagine you want to make mashed potatoes on a windy winter day, but there’s no milk in the fridge. That’s your “call to adventure”—you must leave your warm apartment (status quo) to search for milk. On the way, you slip and fall several times. At the store, a security guard demands you wear a mask, but you don’t have one. Eventually, you manage to sneak in and buy the milk (defeating the main adversary and claiming the prize). Then comes the return to the status quo. You come home, and everything seems as it was, but you’ve brought back trophies: milk and the experience of walking on ice, which you can share with others. This makes life better for your “tribe”—your spouse or kids.

This also explains the similarity between the monomyth and Aristotle’s three-act structure. The first act is the status quo and departure, the second act is the protagonist’s journey, and the third act is the battle with the “dragon” and the return home (the resolution). Again, this points to the human mind’s tendency to see life as “desire – overcoming obstacles – achieving the goal.”

Myth, Ritual, and the Human Psyche

Campbell believed that this structure reflects ancient people’s desire to express their view of human life. Even tribal rituals for transitioning from one status to another were mythological—initiation rites. For example, among Australian aboriginal communities, a boy’s initiation into manhood involved being exiled from the tribe for a time. He had to survive in the wild, find food, and build shelter. If he succeeded, he returned and was initiated as a man.

This perfectly mirrors the monomyth’s structure. The same is seen in the dreams of Jung and Freud’s patients—mythological symbols in dreams represent transitions to new life stages.

But Campbell says the connection between myth and reality goes even deeper. Throughout his book, he emphasizes that the hero’s journey has an inner side. When the protagonist departs, they not only travel to unknown lands but also journey within themselves—to the depths of their consciousness and subconscious. After defeating the main antagonist and returning home, not only does the outer world change, but so does the protagonist. The person who set out on the journey “dies,” and a renewed hero returns home.

This reflects the ancient belief in the cyclical nature of life and the universe. There are countless examples: the daily journey of the Egyptian sun god Ra through the underworld, the wheel of samsara, the symbol of the ouroboros. That’s why Campbell depicts the hero’s journey as a circle—the protagonist’s path ends where it began.

In essence, ancient mythmakers used this structure to reflect not only life’s challenges but also their own view of cosmology. The monomyth is an archetype of human destiny, the eternal cycle of good and evil, life and death.

Modern Criticism of the Monomyth

Despite the strength of Campbell’s arguments and the progressive nature of the monomyth theory in the mid-20th century, today the academic community doesn’t take Campbell’s work very seriously. Leading the criticism are historians Sarah Bond and Joel Christensen, who argue:

“Campbell’s theory is as mythological as the stories it’s based on.”

Their main complaint is that Campbell cherry-picked myths from different cultures, ignoring examples that didn’t fit his theory—and there are plenty of those. Also, most ancient tales existed in oral form and had many variations, making Campbell’s theory neither universal nor precise, according to Bond and Christensen.

Moreover, even though the monomyth is widespread in modern pop culture, it doesn’t always work, even in classic blockbusters, and is far from the only possible structure in film or literature. So, treating the monomyth as the only plot structure is simply wrong.

Another reason for Campbell’s rejection in academic circles is his heavy reliance on Freud and Jung. Freud is now criticized for his obsession with sexual instincts, and Jung for his mystical approach to the psyche. Still, it’s hard to blame Campbell—when he wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces in 1949, Freud and Jung were still unchallenged authorities.

The Value of the Monomyth Today

In any case, the monomyth shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s a great plot structure, whether you’re a writer or a game designer. But to see Campbell only in this light is to make the same mistake his critics accuse him of—oversimplification. Today, The Hero with a Thousand Faces no longer claims to be strictly objective or universal, but it remains a valuable philosophical treatise. At the very least, it popularized an important modern idea—the inner similarity of different cultures. Despite criticism of its evidence, no one denies this conclusion. And the book helps us see the world through ancient eyes and feel like heroes of a myth. But it didn’t help Oxxxymiron win the rap battle.