Part 1: Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

"The Keys" Campbell begins this brief conclusion with a summary of the Hero's Journey, complete with references to all the previously discussed variations on purpose, complication, support of supernatural powers, etc. He discusses how over time, the core myths have evolved to incorporate symbols and meanings more relevant to those that hear them. He then makes the strong suggestion that it's dangerous to interpret myths solely as manifestations of historical events and circumstances. "Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history or science," Campbell writes, "it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky ... when a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved."

He cites the particular example of how...