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The Hero's Journey or Quest

Are there similar steps in every hero's journey? Is there a common pattern to these stories?

Joseph Campbell thought so, and in 1949 he published "The Hero With a Thousand Faces". Campbell's idea was that many of our best loved stories are actually based on the same model, which he called the "Hero's Journey". His book provided many examples from different cultures throughout history. Some people today see Campbell's idea in the story lines of movies such as "The Wizard of Oz" , "The Lion King" and even "The Matrix". George Lucas' script for Star Wars closely followed Campbell's model.

Christopher Vogler, a story analyst for Disney and other movie studios, has applied this idea to movie scripts. His view of the hero's journey has 12 steps. Stories or movie scripts will not always contain every step, but he believes that many do follow this pattern:

1. Ordinary World
2. Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Call
4. Meeting With the Mentor
5. Crossing the First Threshold
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies
7. Approach
8. Supreme Ordeal
9. Reward
10. The Road Back
11. Resurrection
12. Return With the Elixir

Your Task: Apply these 12 steps in the typical hero's quest or journey to what Frodo must do in "Lord of the Rings". How well does it fit?

You may even want to compare this model with other heroes in epic poems, stories, novels or movies such as , Odysseus, Beowulf, Ulysses, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Forrest Gump or others.