Chapter 6, The Innocent, Chapter 7, The Orphan Summary and Analysis

The Innocent is the archetype of the beginning of the Hero's journey. The Innocent one is like a child that trusts his or her parents and society. The Innocent is helped by his naïve belief in the goodness of people around him or her to persevere, even when things look bleak. Nevertheless, sooner or later, there is a fall from innocence, when the Innocent one's reality falls short of his expectations. Many myths tell of a fall from innocence. In Plato's dialogue, "The Symposium," there is the legend of the androgynous man-woman creature who becomes too powerful and then is split by the gods into a man and a woman in order to weaken the creature. The sexual union of man and woman is then the reenactment of the whole...