单项选择题
Passage Two
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The influential American magazine Time described the book as “a brilliant examination through hero myths of man’s eternal struggle for identity”, while George Lucas, director of the famous science fiction Star Wars film trilogy, called it a “revelation”. The subject of their admiration was a book entitled The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949, and was a study by an American, Joseph Campbell, of the mythologies of different cultures. It is a work that has exerted an enormous influence on modern storytelling and on scriptwriting in particular, with important American directors, George Lucas among them, acknowledging their debt to it.
Campbell’s premise is that all myths have the same basic structure:
“A hero ventures forth form the world of common into a region of supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won. The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons upon his fellow man.”
In the “Hero’s Journey”, as Campbell calls it, there are a number of stages, starting with “The Call to Adventure”, in which the hero, sometimes reluctantly, begins their journey. The hero is tested in many ways before the “Supreme Ordeal”, in which they face the possibility of death and survive, gaining through their struggle something of immense value which they can then, on returning home, use for the benefit of others.
Campbell adopted Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s theory of archetype, which states that universal character types exist in all myths and cultures. Thus, the hero archetype is an individual who is transformed in some way through self-sacrifice, while the role of the Mentor archetype is to aid or train the hero. The Shadow archetype embodies negative aspects of life and is the hero’s worthy opponent, while the Trickster provides the comedy element that creates relief from dramatic tension.
Campbell described these stage and archetypes as the building clocks of stories, but stressed that they do not all need to be present and can appear in different forms. In modern stories the struggle may be entirely inward and the Shadow may be the hero’s own negative aspects, while the “Supreme Ordeal” need not be the threat of physical death. The Mentor, can, for example, be the hero’s conscience, bringing them back onto the right path should they leave it. Ultimately, the “Hero’s Journey” is the story of each individual in their journey through life as they struggle to achieve things of positive values for themselves and others.
6. The Hero withe a Thousand Faces _________.
A、 is about scriptwriting
B、introduces important new myths
C、was written by Joseph Campbell, who advised certain directors on their films
D、has made an important contribution to scriptwriting
