The Archetypal Hero's Journey

Many stories from ancient times have been passed down to present days in forms of tales, legends and lores. Most of these stories differ from one to another; especially from today's stories. Stories can have many differences from each other; they have different authors from a different time period, which would have different events to write about. Despite the different style, characters, goals, and even languages and cultures, most of these stories follow a set of archetypes. Within these archetypes, a protagonist is placed as a hero on a journey of leaving their familiar surroundings to enter an unfamiliar and challenging world. This is most commonly known as the hero's journey: a journey that mainly consists of a hero that has been called

A protagonist must have certain traits to be a hero, those that allow the hero to do acts of justice. The hero must do something for the better of society, and for the most part, exhibit goodness. McCarthy establishes this connection through Bell’s own good will and his strive for a better society. Since Bell is a sheriff, it shows that he has a sense of justice because of his position in the field of law enforcement. Bell goes beyond the call of duty and tries to make himself a better person. Bell, being the noble man he is, makes a commitment “[a]bout truth and justice[.] We dedicate ourselves anew daily. Somethin like that. I think I'm goin to commence dedicatin myself twice daily. It may come to three fore it's over” (McCarthy, 97). Bell dedicates himself towards justice, allowing for more room to help others and society. By “dedicatin” himself “twice daily”, he would have to help something twice a day, which is his way of restoring order to society by fixing the small troubles within it. Many times throughout the novel, individuals have problems and Bell shows that he is making an effort to help them. A hero’s main objective is to help people and to create a better place. With this, Bell follows the hero as he also wants to make a better world. A hero must be good, but not all good; in Bell’s case, it is his defeat in the war. Bell, in a narration says, “I

A hero’s usually denies or can’t accept their mission as it very fearful and out of the ordinary world. These adventures have risks that are beyond what is within the ordinary world and require the hero to go into the special world. In Bells case it is the fact that the suspect is of nothing compared to any other problem Bell’s county has seen. Before the call to adventure arose, Bell rejects anything from the antagonist, “But there is another view of the world out there and other eyes to see it and that's where this is goin. It has done brought me to a place in my life I would not of thought I'd of come to. Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he's real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him”(McCarthy, 2). Bell came very slightly across evil and only saw a small glimpse of Chigurh's work and is completely terrified from Chigurh. Bell in this case sees the outside world, the special world where all evil is beyond the ordinary, and is traumatized by the magnitude of impact the drug-dealers and Chigurh have. Because of this, Bell doesn’t want to do any mission or tasks that involves the drug-dealers and Chigurh. When Moss gets caught up in Chigurh and the