Chapter Three: The Hero's Journey '

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Chapter 3: Theoretical and Conceptual Framework Archetypes McKee (1999:3-4) states that a story needs to be premised on archetypes – not stereotype - for it to be enjoyed by an audience from around the world and through generations. Glassner (2004:59) refers to the folklorist and historian Joseph Campbell who studied many stories and myths originating from various cultures. He found a pattern in the structure of stories and characters. Campbell called the structure The Hero’s Journey which is also referred to as the monomyth. The structure comprises of twelve steps: 1. The Ordinary World 2. The Call to Adventure 3. Refusal to Call 4. Meeting with the Mentor 5. Crossing the Threshold 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies 7. Approaching the Cave 8. The Ordeal 9. The Reward 10. The Road back 11. Resurrection 12. Returning with the Elixir The journey is a universal structure but some steps can be omitted or re-arranged. Through the stages, the audience is introduced to the archetypal characters (Glassner 2004:60-65). Archetypes, as explained by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1959:3-4), are “the ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious” which is the universal inborn concept of contents and modes of behaviour. These ‘inborn concepts’ are the same in everyone. Tillman…show more content…
There are universal structures in “human visual perception” which are regarded as perceptual code in Semiotic terms. For example, when one looks at an image, there is a need to separate a dominant figure from the rest of the image, also called the background. When the foreground and background are ambiguous, the person’s experience and context of the image shapes perception. Other “universal principles of perceptual organisation” are proximity, similarity, good continuity, closure, smallness, symmetry and “surroundness”. Other principles of perception can be learnt and are usually culturally different (Chandler
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