The call to adventure is the first stage in the monomyth, when the hero is summoned to undertake a quest. The monomyth is a pattern of hero quest narrative developed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Facesfrom a host of fairy tales, myths, and other sacred tales that span millennia and cultures. Campbell points out that not all hero quest narratives contain all the features of the monomyth, but the call to adventure is omnipresent in these narratives. Sometimes the hero only recognizes the summons in hindsight, and if the tale has a trickster element, it may be well hidden. A helpful and wise guide sometimes explains the call to the prospective quester, but it may also appear, as in some Biblical examples, to be an incomprehensible demand outraging common sense. The call may summon the hero towards a specific task, such as killing a dragon; it may take the form of an epiphany, profoundly transforming the individual’s perceptions and understanding of self and the world;...
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Bibliography
Campbell, J. (1949). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. (2009). The red book: Liber Novus. (S. Shamdasani, Ed.; trans: Kyburz, M., Peck, J. & Shamdasani, S.). New York: W. W. Norton.
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Mills, A. (2014). Call, The. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_91
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