One of the most used template of narrative structure is the so called Hero’s Journey that takes its name from who respectively created it and improved it, that is Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL’S NARRATIVE TEMPLATE
It was born from the study about myths that started with the theories by the English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor about common schemes below the stories of heroes. His theories and study has made many other people to study those myths and schemes and to create other theories and templates.
Joseph John Campbell was an American writer who, influenced by the Carl Jung’s theories about the collective unconscious, has created his own template of narrative structure that, for me, is below every myth and story of every culture of the world.
In the 1949, in his book titled Hero of thousand faces, Campbell describes his basic narrative template as:
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man”
He describes his template as monomyth borrowing the term from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake to underline its characteristic to be common among more stories.
The Hero’s Journey by Campbell is based on 17 stages. In a story, these phases can be all present or there can be just few of them, moreover they can have a different order.
These stages are divided in 3 acts:
I. DEPARTURE
- The Call to Adventure;
- Refusal of the Call;
- Supernatural Aid;
- The Crossing of the First Threshold;
- Belly of the Whale.
In this first act, the hero or protagonist lives in an ordinary world, and he is called to go on in an unknown adventure. He is afraid so he refuses to go but then he receives the help of a mentor and thanks to him he accept to go. Accepting the mission, the hero also accept to be changed by it, the last stage represents indeed the fact that he leaves his originary world and his originary self.
Luke Skywalker lives on a distant planet names Tattoine , he is called to action by the Jedi Master Ben Kenobi who tells him that the galaxy is in danger and he is the only one that can save it. The young boy does not believe to be able to do it so he refuses. The death of his uncle and his aunt convince him to follow the Jedi and to accept his destiny.
II. INITIATION
- The Road of Trials;
- The Meeting with the Goddess;
- Woman as the Temptress;
- Atonement with the Father;
- Apotheosis;
- The Ultimate Boon.
In the second act, during his adventure the hero has to face some tests, sometimes he wins, sometimes he fails. In the end, he can overcome these trials and continue his journey of transformation. During this journey, he receive some objects that he will find useful (The Meeting with the Goddess) and he will have to face some temptations that will threaten his mission. This stage is called Woman as the Temptress because the woman is a metaphor of the physical or material temptations that could drive away the hero from his mission. After overcoming these temptations, the hero faces the figure who controls his life that can be a father figure or an entity with great powers. Then he becomes aware of his purpose and his mission and finally he reach the goal of his quest.
Luke faces many trials like saving the Princess Leis kidnapped by the Empire, learning how to use the Force and destroying the most powerful weapon of the Empire, the Death Star. The Loss of his friend and master makes him doubt about himself and his mission. However, the desire to protect his friends (the princess and the scoundrel Han Solo with his wookie Chewbecca) and to stop the Empire convinces him to not give up and keep fighting. He also comes to term with his father, the Sith Lord Darth Vader who will leave the Dark Side for him.
III. RETURN
- Refusal of the Return;
- The Magic Flight;
- Rescue from Without;
- The Crossing of the Return Threshold;
- Master of the Two Worlds;
- Freedom to Live.
In the final act, the hero has fulfilled his mission so he could come back to his world to get someone to continue the journey but he does not want. This because the journey to come back home could be too long and dangerous, he could need someone or something that guides him toward his world.
Coming back to the ordinary world, the hero has to find balance between who he was before and what he has become after the journey. He has to find a way to take what he learned during his adventure into his ordinary and daily life. If he can do it, he become Master of the Two Worlds and this means that’s he can live in both the ordinary and the extraordinary world. In this way, he is free to live in the moment without thinking about the past or the future.
Luke destroys the Death Star and saves the Galaxy but his journey is not finished because his path to become a Jedi is long and the Empire is not defeated at all. Leia and Han will help him, now he knows that his destiny is far behind his desert and distant native planet.
STAR WARS AND OTHER MONONYTHS
The fact that we can use Star Wars as an example of Campbell’s narrative template is not casual, it has been defined as a monomyth since it was released in the theatre for the first time. George Lucas himself declared in an interview that he based the story on Campbell’s template.
“it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology… so that’s when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe’s books. … It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classical motifs”
Behind the famous sci-fi saga, there are many other stories (in form of a book, a movie or other) that can be defined as monomyth such as Lord of the Rings, The Chronicle’s of Narnia, Moby Dick, A Christmas Carol.
CHRISTOPHER VOGLER’S NARRATIVE TEMPLATE
Cristopher Vogler is an American screen writer, author of the book The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers where, influenced by Campbell’s studies and Jung’s theories, he explores and simplifies the narrative structure making his own templates.
He indeed has studied thousands screenplays for the biggest studios and he has contributed to create some successful stories like The Lion King and The Beauty and The Beast for Disney.
His templates is based on 12 stages always divided in 3 acts: Departure, Initiation, Return.
The stage are:
- Ordinary world where the hero lives and where there is certain balance;
- Call to adventure is a challenge, a problem or an adventure that calls the hero to action and requires to leave the ordinary world;
- Refusal of the call from the hero who is afraid or has a reason to refuse to go on the mission;
- Meeting with the mentor is what the hero meets the mentor who helps him to face the new world;
- Crossing the first threshold is the moment where the hero starts his journey in the extraordinary world;
- Tests, allies, and enemies are what the hero will find during his adventure in the new world;
- Approach to the inmost cave is the moment where the hero overcome the second threshold and go far deep in the new world;
- The ordeal is the moment where the hero faces what has taken him into his journey;
- Reward is the object of desire that the hero has conquered in the last trial;
- The road back is the road of the hero to come back to his world;
- The resurrection is the stage where the hero, safe and sound, is different because his adventure has changed him;
- Return with the elixir is the moment where the hero, finished his adventure, finally comes back in his world and in his life.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Cambell has created a template for the narrative structure of a story that has been semplied by Vogler. The resulting template is one of the template most used and versatile template that can be used for different purposes. As we have anticipated (Here), it is not the only template that can be used for Storytelling. In the years, many others templates has been elaborated such as:
- Syd Field’s Paradigm;
- Dan Harmon Story Circle;
- Fichtean Curve;
- Save the Cat template;
- Freytag’s Pyramid;
- The 7 point Story Structure.
Moreover, Christopher Vogler has also created the so-called basic figures, present in every story. Even these, like the narrative structure, derive from the influence of the theories of the philosopher and psychologist Jung about archetypes. As we can see in the relative article, archetypes are other important elements to consider for a good Storytelling.