Joseph Campbell identifies the refusal of the call in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a story trope where the main protagonist of the story is called to an adventure but refuses to go. The hero’s reluctance to act can come from a variety of reasons that are usually psychological in nature. Emotions such as guilt or fear try to keep the hero homebound so that he/she cannot soar and reach their full heroic potential. It is an age-old trend that is found in all mediums of mankind’s story form. Everything from epic poems, oral fairy tales, literary fiction, television shows and finally movies. It is a part of the storytelling tradition that Campbell famously calls “The Monomyth.”
Read More
