Exploring the Hero’s Journey

Abstract

Campbell begins in the ‘commonday hut or castle’ (1993: 245), a place where the hero lives in a ‘familiar life horizon [… with] old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns’ (ibid.: 52). This kind of Ordinary World is where the hero goes about ordinary business, establishing a routine, everyday situation from which there will be a moving on — a journey of change. For Vogler, it is essential to offer a baseline comparison between the Ordinary World and the Special World: ‘The Special World of the story is only special if we can see it in contrast to a mundane world of everyday affairs from which the hero issues forth’ (1999: 85). Similarly, Campbell writes that ‘destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown’ (1993: 58), suggesting the necessity of establishing such an initial ‘society’ so the ‘zone unknown’ can be just that. Thus, when Vogler states that the Ordinary World ‘has some special burdens to bear’ (1999: 81), we can see why: the screenwriter must effectively establish the hero, his life and his story world, building the beginning of the narrative and, at the same time, interesting and engaging an audience enough to watch.