The Hero's Journey In Beowulf By Joseph Campbell

The hero's journey, created by Joseph Campbell, is the common template of a broad category of tales that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed. Campbell's theory describes seventeen stages of the hero's journey or monomyth though not all monomyths necessarily contain all seventeen stages explicitly; some myths may focus on only one of the stages, while others may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. Beowulf follows the life of the great hero Beowulf and his journey. Beowulf does and does not qualify as a mythic hero, according to Campbell’s standards, because he continuously shows throughout the epic that he is a hero of his own standards as well as following the hero's journey.

One way that Beowulf is proven to not be a mythical hero during the hero’s journey is proven during the “Call to Adventure”.

According to Campbell's theory, the hero’s journey begins when the hero chances upon the impending journey, a herald, who is usually ugly or scary, summons the hero to adventure, and the setting is outside or in the woods. However, at the beginning of the poem, there is no chance encounter, no ugly herald, and the setting is neither outside or in the woods. On the other hand, there is a herald though not in a conventional sense the Herald is the news of Hrothgar's sorrow.

Notwithstanding Beowulf proves later to by a mythical hero by Campbell’s standards during the “Supernatural Aid” part of the journey. Campbell’s claim about this stage is that the supernatural aid is usually a protective older figure who provides some form of amulet, advice, and guidance, they can be either male or female, and help comes when the hero accepts the call. For Beowulf, his supernatural aid is Wyrd, the goddess of destiny/fate comes to the aid of those who are brave or have accepted the call. However, Wyrd doesn’t appear in human form, and she gives no amulet of

advice.
Finally, Beowulf proves himself to once again fall between the lines of Campbell’s theory during “Crossing the First Threshold”. According to Campbell’s ideas of this stage, a threshold guardian represents the limits beyond the hero’s known, and normal people do not test the limit of society and never cross the threshold into the unknown. When it is Beowulf’s turn time to cross the threshold it is Grendel that stands in the role of the threshold guardian, and his mean fear staying in Herot Hall as well as Grendel which stands as the unknown that normal men never cross. However, the threshold, Herot Hall, is found inside society and not in the unknown as Campbell’s theory claims. Along with the fact that Beowulf stands as a threshold guardian as well while he guards the hall against Grendel.