Ethan Persaud - Archetype and the Hero’s First Call

One of the most significant ideas from this course has been the concept of the hero’s journey and the moment of the first call to action, introduced to us through Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. What interests me most is that the hero is almost never ready when this call arrives. The hero begins in a state of comfort and familiarity, and then something disrupts that. In class, we talked about how the hero must leave that current place of identity in order to discover who they are. I found that this idea connects to our discussion of the concept of archetypes, or the foundational and primal structures that exist within human consciousness. The word arche and its meaning of foundation has stayed with me throughout the semester. If archetypes are foundational patterns of human experience, then Campbell’s hero is not simply one character in one story, but a reflection of something universal for all people. Everyone experiences some kind of call. For example, leaving home for college was a huge one for myself as it felt like an enormous challenge that I was extremely hesitant to begin. Moments like these are not merely events, but something that we discussed as biotransformative experiences, something that fundamentally changes the trajectory of someone’s life. As I said, for me this was my experience in coming to college. Leaving home and the comfort and structure that I had known for all of my life felt like I was leaving that mythic threshold. Familiarity was behind me and I was forced into a new reality of everything changed. I had to rediscover my worth and my identity here at Christopher Newport. I thought that Campbell’s structure helped me make sense of that experience and transform my chaotic life into a meaningful narrative.


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