To me it makes no difference that Isis is female. I think she still follows Joseph Campbell’s concept of the hero and the hero’s journey. Even though Isis’s story differs from the hero’s journey she is still a hero according to the people of Egypt. On page 14 of our text World Mythology, Donna Rosenberg states “Isis was a human being as well as a goddess. Her persistent search for the body of Osiris and her trials while she reared Horus in the papyrus swamps endeared her to the Egyptian people. As in the Hero’s Journey, Isis begins her journey, “The Departure”, with the death of her husband Osiris. The Supernatural aide she receives comes from her father Thoth. “The Initiation” comes as she follows the “road of trials” in her challenges to save her son and overcome the evil of Set. “The Return” is when Set finally losses in combat and on page 21 in our text “She was satisfied and happy.
Her husband had returned to life and love. Her son had avenged his father… The kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt was in good hands, and all was well. ” “Campbell asserts that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. ” (lecture).
I think that the story of Isis follows the pattern of the hero as well as it being a part of her husband, Osiris’s hero journey.
In Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with A Thousand Faces, he writes “The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love (charity: amor fati), which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity. ” I think that Isis is as much a hero on a hero’s journey as Osiris, or Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter or Jesus Christ. Because she is a woman, because she is a mother makes her journey no less important and actually makes it more powerful, I think.
The Essay on Gladiator Hero Journey Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell's Journey of the Hero, Gladiator In the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell lays out the steps that one must complete in order to become a hero. The first step of the cycle is the Separation phase, in which the hero must accept a challenge and experience that which is unfamiliar to him. Initiation, the second phase of the cycle, consists of several trials that not ...
