The Hero's Journey

As discovered through, and defined by, the work of noted mythologist and researcher Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey is a story of a person, young or mature, male or female, who leaves the relative comfort of home and undergoes a physical journey that echoes and/or triggers a simultaneous emotional, spiritual and moral journey. In other words, physical travel / outer adventure causes and/or manifests a journey of inner transformation. Countless stories of this sort can be found in narratives from Ancient Greece (i.e. "The Odyssey") to the Middle Ages (i.e. "Everyman") to contemporary motion pictures (i.e. "The Wizard of Oz", "Star Wars") and literature ("Harry Potter"). Jacob's story, as told in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, is another example of this classic genre. Jacob, like so many other heroes throughout the history of narrative, leaves his everyday life/world behind when...