THE JOURNEY How Heroes are Made

4 STAGES OF THE JOURNEY  All heroes must go through these four stages in order to become a hero  Innocence  Initiation  Chaos  Resolution

INNOCENCE  We are one with the world  Believe we are the center of the Universe  Suffering is minimal and short-lived  Death is unfathomable  Happy and pleasure

INITIATION  3 events can start our fall from innocence  Death  Awareness of evil  Sexual Awakening

INITIATION BY DEATH  We see someone close to us die  Teaches us loved ones can be separated forever  No one is immune to death (including ourselves)  We are all mortal  Question our own strength and capabilities

INITIATION BY EVIL  We see evil win  Violates our belief in the fairness and justice of our world  Goes against all we’ve been taught about rewarding good and punishing evil  Makes us question the point of being good  No compensation for suffering  No punishment for evil  Moral compass is no longer guiding

INITIATION BY SEXUAL AWAKENING  Creates intense desire within us  Can either be frustrated from lack of being met  Can be fulfilled and then retracted (Failed Relationship)  Rejection of emotional intimacy makes us wary of loving again  Rejection by the person we trust most damages our confidence

INITIATION CONT.  The temptation of all initiations experiences is to stop growing  Future is dangerous and illogical  Understand reality of the world  Gain knowledge, but not knowledge we wanted

CHAOS  This is where art is created  Struggle of our existence to reconcile the information revealed during initiation  Struggle to move on despite our belief that future only holds pain and unrelieved suffering  Instinct of man is to move backward  Return to state of innocence  Employ denial against what we don’t want to acknowledge  True hero is not defeated by this knowledge  Transforms it into wisdom  Distills experience  Reconciles the paradox of good and evil  Strengthened by it

RESOLUTION  Important to remember heroes that reach this stage do it with open eyes  Does not evade the knowledge of the fall  Integrates into a wider, fuller, and truer version of the world  In mythology most heroes reach this stage  In modern and postmodern eras in literature there is a litany of heroes who never reach the 4 th stage  Most feminist and ethnic literature they do find resolution

MODERN DAY HEROES’ JOURNEYS  At your tables, brainstorm a few examples of a modern day heroes’ journeys.