Eisley is where Luke sells his landspeeder, a representation of his
former life, and enlists Han Solo’s aid. The Threshold contains a
guardian of some sort which must be passed. This guardian dwells
within the Threshold, and is usually a creature or living enemy.
Heimdall was guarded by a god of the same name whose sole
purpose was to prevent the crossing of the bridge by mortals.
Luke’s first encounter with such a danger occurs while Ben and he
are attempting to enter the spaceport. They enter the city with
See-Threepio and Artoo–Detoo, and are stopped by a group of
stormtroopers. The stormtroopers, which are the Empire’s
standard soldiers, are searching for the droids, and begin to
question Luke about his ownership of them. Ben uses the Force to
exert mind control over them, and convinces them to allow Luke
and him to pass. This is Luke’s first taste of the magical power
which he himself will come to possess.
Another significant encounter takes place in the Cantina,
Mos Eisley’s combination bar/information center. While talking
to Chewbacca, first mate aboard the Millennium Falcon, about
securing passage, Luke is left alone for a brief time. He is bullied
by Ponda Baba, a walrus-headed monster. Ben attempts to calm
the situation by offering him a drink, but Ponda Baba’s friend, a
humanoid mercenary who has “the death sentence in twelve
systems,” attacks him. Ben slices off Ponda Baba’s arm with his
lightsaber and ends the conflict. Here Luke first witnesses Ben’s
power in combat. According to Campbell, this is characteristic of
the Threshold. In addition to being the gate to the Realm of
Adventure, it offers the Hero his first glimpse into a bigger world.
The Hero exits the Threshold eager for more excitement and
mentally more able to accept the wonders he will face.
After leaving his Homeland, the Hero finds himself faced
with many challenges along the path to adventure. After
overcoming these challenges, the Hero is then presented with a
final difficult task and finally the prize. In one Germanic/Norse
myth, the hero, a mighty warrior named Siegfried, seeks to win the
hand of Brunhilde in marriage. Brunhilde has been asleep many
years atop a mountain, placed there by her father Odin as a
punishment. Siegfried sets out and must fight many monsters and
face myriad obstacles to reach the mountain. Once there, he is
faced with Odin disguised as an old man. Siegfried passes by Odin
by breaking Odin’s staff–representative of disarming him. Upon
climbing the mountain, he is faced with a curtain of magical fire
which circles the sleeping Brunhilde. The only way anyone can
pass through the flame is to plunge immediately into it without
hesitation, and Siegfried does so, making his way to his bride.
Luke faces obstacles from the start, but unlike Siegfried, he is
unable to cope with all of them by himself. He is aided by helpers
as described above. After facing the obstacles, the Hero enters the
Land of Enchantment. In A New Hope, Luke enters the Death Star
and attempts to rescue Princess Leia. The Death Star is Luke’s
Land of Enchantment, where he faces most of his personal
challenges.
Here there is a minor discrepancy between the hero cycle
in A New Hope and that in most other mythologies. In nearly
every folk tale or legend, the obtaining of the prize is preceded by
the Supreme Ordeal, a task of seemingly impossible difficulty.
Siegfried’s Supreme Ordeal was the fiery curtain. Perseus had to
kill a monster he couldn’t look at. The Hero’s Supreme Ordeal
was the biggest, most impressive encounter he had to face, and
was the highlight of his adventure. Luke’s rescue of Princess Leia
was indeed spectacular and daring, as he and Han had to cope with
a space station full of enemy soldiers, but the rescue is eclipsed by
Luke’s destruction of the Death Star at the end of the movie. This
was presumably done because A New Hope was an action movie,
which as a rule needs to present a final conflict at the conclusion
rather than the climax. Therefore, Luke’s Supreme Ordeal, the
destruction of the Death Star, is separate from his prize, the rescue
of Princess Leia.
Upon entering the Land of Enchantment, the Hero is
typically left to his own devices to complete his quest. If the Hero
has learned his lessons well and fulfilled his role, he will do well
and succeed. If not, his quest is doomed to fail. The Greek Hero
Orpheus is an example of such an unfortunate. Orpheus fell in
love with a girl named Eurydice and they intended to wed. Several
days before their wedding, the girl stepped on and was bitten by a
venomous snake, and later died. Orpheus determined to go to
Hades to retrieve her. Orpheus, whose mother was Calliope, the
muse of poets and musicians, was widely known as the most
skilled bard in all the land. He was able to calm man and beast
alike by playing his lyre. He was also known for being cocky and
arrogant, and in some variations of the tale his beloved’s death was
planned by the gods to warn him of his pride. Orpheus set out and
entered Hades by playing music so melancholy that Charon, filled
with pity, agreed to ferry him across. Orpheus then fought off and
charmed the spirits of the dead, and made his way to the palace of
Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the underworld. He
again charmed his antagonists, and was allowed to have his
beloved back if he could make his way back above the earth
without glancing back at her. While making the journey back,
Orpheus called her name to make sure she was following him.
She didn’t hear him, and Orpheus glanced back at her. The girl
was immediately drawn back to Hades and lost forever.
Despite its unhappy ending, the myth of Orpheus bears
much resemblance to Luke’s quest. Immediately upon entering the
Death Star, Luke and his friends hid themselves until they could
ambush several stormtroopers and disguise themselves in their
uniforms. At this point Ben left the group to disable the tractor
beam keeping their ship imprisoned. This is symbolic of the
supernatural force which aids the Hero to a certain point, then
leaves to pursue other goals. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,”
Gandalf was only present for certain obstacles, leaving when he
deemed it necessary. His absences allowed Bilbo, the hero of the
story, to prove his worth. Perhaps the hardest leg of Bilbo and his
friend’s journey, the trip through Mirkwood, was traversed without
the aid of Gandalf. The events which occurred in this forest, and
up until the very end of the story, were those in which Bilbo took
control and matured into a Hero. When Ben left, Luke too started
to prove his worth by coming up with a plan to rescue Princess
Leia, who was being held prisoner. His plan worked until Luke,
Han, and Chewbacca reached the prison cell where Leia was being
held. Their success due to Luke’s cunning corresponds to
Orpheus’s charming of the spirits which threatened him. They
then had to fight the guards in order to reach the princess. They
successfully defended against the guards long enough to reach the
princess and rescue her, finally escaping from immediate danger
by sliding down a garbage chute. The friends’s success due (in
part) to Luke’s combat ability corresponds to Orpheus’s success in
fighting off the spirits which didn’t succumb to his music.
After the obtaining of the primary goal, the Hero must flee
from the place of his adventure and face more obstacles along the
way. In this escape, termed the Flight by Campbell, the Hero
exhibits what he has learned and proves that he has earned his
prize. In A New Hope, the obstacles faced by Luke and his friends
after the rescue of the Princess were far greater than those faced
before. Again Luke takes control and starts to fulfill his role as
Hero. Immediately after escaping down the garbage chute, the
friends find themselves in a garbage compactor. Luke is seized
and dragged underwater by a snakelike creature. Han is helpless to
save him, and Luke would have drowned had it not been for the
introduction of the next obstacle. The creature withdraws when
the walls start to move in toward themselves, leaving Luke and
company to deal with a new threat. This series of events is a
classic example of the frying pan-fire analogy. The heroes escape
from the stormtroopers to be threatened with the sewer-creature,
which they survive only to be faced with the walls caving in. The
obstacle of the walls is another example of the Clashing Rocks of
the Symplegades in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts. In the
myth, the heroes escape by following a blind seer’s advice given in
a previous adventure. They let a dove fly through the Rocks ahead
of the ship. The dove’s tail feathers are crushed, but it safely
makes it through. The heroes start to row as the Rocks begin to
separate, and the ship just barely passes through. The Rocks then
withdraw and become forever rooted to the ocean floor. The dove
in this scene of A New Hope is Artoo- Detoo. As Han, Chewbacca
and Leia try to block the closing walls with a length of pipe, Luke
contacts See-Threepio through his comlink. See-Threepio
instructs Artoo- Detoo to interface with the computer and shut
down the garbage facilities, which he does just in the nick of time.
There is a brief but meaningful encounter just before the
band reaches their ship in which there is another example of
Luke’s growth as a hero. Luke and Leia become separated from
the others, and are faced with a wide ravine. There is no way
across, and stormtroopers are attacking them from behind as well
as the other side of the ravine. Luke, thinking quickly, throws a
grappling hook across and swings to the other side. This is Luke’s
first trial he has faced alone, and he successfully overcomes it.
The last obstacle during the Flight occurs as the
companions are leaving the Death Star. Ben has died, killed by
Darth Vader while drawing attention away from Luke and his
band, but Luke’s training with him has been completed. Ben’s
role was to instruct Luke and teach him how to use his cunning.
He exhibits his mastery of this in the crossing of the ravine and the
escape from the garbage pit. The only training Luke has remaining
is instruction in the physical, combat-oriented skills. In Celtic
mythology, there existed a mighty warrior named Cuchulainn.
Cuchulainn was the most powerful hero in the land, and could be
bested by no one in his Homeland. Cuchulainn traveled to Skatha,
a great warrior queen who dwelt in the faerie land, for training and
competition. Han takes Skatha’s place in A New Hope. He
doesn’t actually teach Luke; he is more of an example for Luke to
follow. Han is a brilliant pilot and fighter. His ship is the fastest
ship known to the Rebellion or the Empire as a result of his careful
modifications, although it is less-than-attractive to the eye
(Reference ANH, 10027–10107). Han uses many complicated and
dangerous tactics in ship-to-ship combat, and is headstrong and
fearless in battle. Luke witnesses his friend’s abilities and learns
by copying them. His skills are tested in the escape from the
Death Star. Four TIE Fighters, the Empire’s standard starfighter,
pursue the Millennium Falcon away from the Death Star. Han
leaves Chewbacca and Leia to pilot the ship while he and Luke go
to the weapons controls. It is significant that Han asks Luke to
help him. Earlier he reprimanded Luke’s overeagerness
(Reference ANH, 10129–10309) and now he welcomes his aid
(Reference ANH, 13956–14227). They successfully destroy their
enemies, and Luke shows skill equal to Han’s by destroying an
equal number of ships. Upon finishing training with Skatha,
Cuchulainn aids her in a netherworld battle with an enemy force.
In the battle he fights as well as Skatha, proving he has completed
his training.
The next part of the Hero’s adventure in Campbell’s Cycle
is the return from the threshold. This is the Hero’s exit from the
Land of Enchantment and return to the normal world. This is not a
lull or end of activity; rather, it is a heightening of danger and
resolve. The Hero has succeeded in winning his prize, but in most
myths the prize is necessary to accomplish some deed in the
Hero’s homeland. Perseus slew Medusa not on a whim but as a
request. His mother, Danae, was a beautiful woman whom the
king of the land, Polydectes, lusted after. Polydectes was evil and
greedy, and decided to force Danae to marry him. Perseus
defended his mother so strongly and heroically that Polydectes
decided to get rid of him. He pretended to marry another princess,
and invited Perseus to attend the wedding. Perseus was poor and
could afford no wedding present, and told Polydectes this when it
came time for the presentation of the gifts. Polydectes
condescended to him, knowing that Perseus’s pride would be
stung. Perseus told him that he would do anything the king wanted
as his gift, and Polydectes told him to kill Medusa and bring back
her head, not believing he could do it. Meanwhile, he intended to
force Danae to marry him. When Perseus accomplished the deed
and escaped from the remaining two Gorgons, his adventure was
not over. He still had to return and confront the situation at home.
Luke’s return from the threshold is his escape from the
Death Star to the Rebel base on Yavin IV. He has won a victory
for the Rebellion by rescuing Princess Leia and the information
aboard Artoo- Detoo, but the Empire knows where the Rebellion’s
base is. The Death Star is on its way to destroy the planet, and the
Hero must somehow stop it. Luke has now exited the realm of the
fantastic but must still finish his quest outside of it.
The last step of the cycle is the return with the Elixir and
the Resolution. Beowulf, after wounding Grendel, had secured
Hrothgar’s Mead Hall, but he still had to track Grendel down. In
his case, the Elixir, or the key item or piece of information needed
to complete the quest, was the knowledge of the location of
Grendel’s lair. Only by acting upon the Elixir was he able to kill
Grendel’s mother and end the threat forever. The Elixir in the
story of Perseus was Medusa’s head, which Perseus stuffed in the
magical wallet given to him by Hermes. When he returned to
Polydectes’s palace, he found that his mother had been made to
marry the evil king. Perseus stormed into Polydectes’s throne
room, where he and his nobles were celebrating. Polydectes was
stunned that Perseus had come back, and before he could act
Perseus held aloft Medusa’s head and turned everyone present
save himself into stone.
The Elixir in “A New Hope” was the information Princess
Leia had stored in Artoo- Detoo. Specifically, the information was
the technical readout of the Death Star. Once at Yavin, the heroes
set about searching the readout for a hidden weakness, and found
one. The pilots rushed to their starfighters and prepared to launch.
Luke was invited to join them, thus completing his transition. He
started out as an ordinary boy, answered the Call to Adventure, and
entered the Threshold. He passed the obstacles before him and
successfully overcame his Supreme Ordeal. He escaped safely
back into the ordinary realm, and now all that remained was the
use of the Elixir to finish his quest. Luke was the one who
destroyed the Death Star in the nick of time, thus saving the
Rebellion. The legend of Beowulf again proves useful. Beowulf
finds that Grendel’s lair is underwater, and he immediately dives
in to find him. This symbolizes the impossible situation the Hero
must act in. The Rebels’s situation in A New Hope is similar,
having small one-man starfighters to attack a battle station as big
as a moon. Beowulf is confronted with Grendel’s mother, an
opponent larger and meaner than Grendel himself. The immediate
worsening of odds is also a typical part of the final conflict of the
Hero. Luke and the other Rebel pilots not only have to destroy the
Death Star, but they must also fight off enemy starfighters,
including Darth Vader, one of the best pilots in the galaxy. The
heroes have a bit of luck, though; the Death Star has a small
exhaust port which leads directly to its center. A direct torpedo hit