Monomyth: The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Name Instructor Course Date Monomyth Almost all compelling mythical stories follow the same structure. Joseph Campbell in his book, “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”, established that since time immemorial, stories about heroes have followed a pattern that he called Monomyth or “The Hero’s Journey” (Sadri 1). In some of the movies that we have watched, we have consumed “Monomyth”. In this paper, I am going to cover the story of John a spy sent to locate 11 unknown witnesses in what looked like an impossible task but somehow he manages to locate them. As the story begins, John reviews his life and the love he lost. He is now in a mess and regrets not quitting the office of the naval intelligence (ONI) early on. He is now lonely and believes that his life has lost its purpose. He tells himself that he has one major job and then he retires. He believes it is this job that denied him the opportunity to spend valuable time with his former wife, causing the separation. They had been so much in love that other couples wanted to be like them. Just when he wanted to quit, he was sent on one final assignment to chase after someone the government wanted. The search had taken ages and by the time he was back, their relationship had reached an all-time low and their separation was imminent. They were really lost because they knew they were still in love with each other and yet they could not stay together. One early morning, John gets a call from the National Security Agency (NSA). He wonders what the NSA would want from him because he belongs to ONI. He decides to go anyway and while there he is told that being one of the best in the country, he has an assignment to locate some witnesses. The witnesses were from different nationalities and they had seen a weather balloon fall while they were on a tour bus in Switzerland. The task was to track down the witnesses and report back to the NSA. However, he was never to use the help of anyone, not even his closest friends and the acquaintances he had made throughout his professional life. He found this strange and for a moment he told himself that he would not be going, but he knew better than to question his superiors. John partially agrees to go on the assignment, but first seeks the advice of his father-figure and friend, retired Admiral Wilson. Even though he is under instructions to talk to, no one, he is prepared to risk and tells the admiral about the journey. The admiral encourages him to go and wishes him luck. He reminds John that he can call him any time to make any inquiries. John embarks on the journey and boards a plane to Switzerland. The plane he boarded was specially reserved for him, a military plane. He has limited information to work on. What he knows is that the tourists were of different nationalities, they were on a tour bus that stopped for about 15minutes so that the passengers could see a weather balloon that fell. He knows it is going to be hard, but he gets the lucky break and gets the name of the driver of the tour bus. What the driver tells him that they saw a UFO and not a weather balloon. During the adventure he travels to different countries to locate the witnesses. He discovers that what the witnesses had seen was a UFO with aliens in it and not a weather balloon. From the driver, he gets to understand the number of people that had seen the UFO and the nationalities of some of them to get him started on the quest. What had looked like an impossible task is accomplished and John manages to locate eleven witnesses. He reported each witness he found to his superiors. However, some of the witnesses had talked about a twelfth witness. John finds this strange and decides to go back to the witnesses he had found to inquire what they knew about the twelfth witness. To his dismay, all of them were dead, mostly through accidents. He finds this strange too, because the deaths took place a day or two after he had reported finding a witness. That’s when he comes to the realization that he had discovered the witnesses only for his superiors to murder them. Instinctively he knows that he is next in line and being a former spy, he decides to keep it safe. His employers begin to hunt him down and before long; he is labeled a terrorist and placed on the list of the most wanted person. Top agencies are out to get him and his former instructor joins the hunt, not to kill him but to rescue him. John masquerades and uses all the survival tricks he knew. Try, as he may, they keep tracing his location. That is when he realizes that they had been tracking him all along through a card he had been issued with. He decides to let go off the card and buys himself some time to plan. John knows he has done no wrong, but still, he fears for his life. He remembers that the admiral once told him to call whenever he has any issue. He calls Wilson and tells him what he had uncovered. He explains that what had actually fallen was an UFO and not a weather balloon and that he located the witnesses that the NSA killed all of them. Now, there was a twelfth witness, an alien that had been in the UFO at the time of the crash. John explains that top government agencies of several countries were behind the plot to conceal the information. That is why they murdered the witnesses because of what they saw. Because he had uncovered information about the UFO, there was an order for his elimination. John requests that the admiral arranges for him a safe passage to the U.S. and organizes for him to meet the president. Unknown to John, the admiral is the one giving orders and running the entire elimination scheme. Before he hangs up, his pursuers are able to place a trace to his location and send a hit squad there. He barely manages to escape with his life. Realizing that he is cornered, he makes a short trip to Rome to hook-up with a friend. Incidentally, he runs into his ex-wife who is now married to a billionaire businessman. She offers to help him escape to their yacht to any destination just so he could escape from his pursuers. He says he would and runs off to his friend who heads the police force in Rome. Incidentally, his friend is not about to help him. Instead, he tries to have him arrested, but he luckily escapes. Realizing that he will find it hard to maneuver alone, he picks up one of the hookers to be his companion. Through her, he is able to hire a taxi and they get a ride towards Naples, the home of the hooker Sylvia. Sylvia is able to see that the foreigner is rich, but something in him looks suspicious. Then she sees posters with his pictures. She realizes he is wanted by Interpol and $50,000 reward will be given to anyone who gives information leading to his arrest. She makes her own calculation on the amount of money she can make by communicating with the police. She hates the police, but she loves the money. When they are on...