Analysis: The Hero's Journey

Throughout history we have seen many different hero stories and how the hero of the story changes. Joseph Campbell's “The Hero’s Journey” describes all the steps of the hero’s journey, from being an ordinary person, to the call for adventure, to the tests all the way to where the protagonist has changed hopefully for the best and has returned home. These stages are important for combination myths, like what Linda Seger talked about in her article “Creating the Myth”. In her article she talks about combining parts of different myths, like the healing myth, with the transformation process of the hero myth to create a story where the hero must go through many challenges to come out as a better person, which is what Merida does in Brave. Though most heroes go through the same kind of story and challenges, there are different types of heroes which is what Robert B. Ray talked about in “The Thematic Paradigm”. With most Disney princess movies the princess is not seen as an outlaw hero, which is what makes Merida unique. In Brave, Merida is seen as the official hero because she is a princess, but in her storyline …show more content…
Within “The Hero’s Journey”, Campbell talks about how there are seventeen stages of a journey for the hero. These stages all help the protagonist evolve into someone greater and someone who is wiser than before. If a ruler of a failing kingdom went on this journey, they would come back and know what they needed to do to make sure that their kingdom does not fail because they are driven by the desire to succeed. The outlaw hero is one that lives by their own rules, and when they go on this journey they are normally reluctant to change until they get a some sort of an epiphany or have a realization. Ray talks about how outlaw heroes do not trust society and they do things on their own