The Everlasting Call

    The call to adventure is the first step of the hero's journey and arguably the most important because the hero would go nowhere without it. It plants the thought of the unknown in the hero's head, opening their mind to possibilities they had not considered before. How an author frames the call to adventure sets the tone for the rest of the story. It is often intimately connected with the hero's motivations, providing the base and inspiration for the hero's journey. On the surface, it seems like the call to adventure happens and has no other effects while in reality the call continues to influence the characters throughout the entire story. Star Wars: A New Hope and Siddhartha depict this step in different ways, but the call continues in the character's mind in both. 

    Star Wars: A New Hope has Luke Skywalker playing the hero. He starts comfortable in his home, Tatooine, where he is living with his aunt and uncle. Tatooine is his known world where he is comfortable and knows his role in life, repeating relatively similar motions each day. However, the two droids R2D2 and C3PO arrive and bring an element of uncertainty into his life because they brought with them a broken message for Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke's distant neighbor. This message did not throw Luke into the unknown world, but it certainly shook up his known world because he had to venture a little ways a way from home to deliver the message. The message came in the form of a holographic recording that beckoned Obi-Wan to Alderaan. By association, Luke was also called to Alderaan. This recording acted quite literally as a call to adventure. Luke immediately refused the call because he could not leave his aunt and uncle, demonstrating that leaving his known world was never a possibility in his mind and confirming that the message planted the idea in his head. The call set up many essentials for the rest of the story because it gave Luke a mission as he began his journey and brought Luke closer to his mentor by giving them a reason to spend time together. This call also allowed Obi-Wan to teach Luke about life, which played an essential part in Luke's journey. 

    Siddhartha begins with Siddhartha living in the Brahmin community with his family and friends. He is unfulfilled with his current life but has always accepted his place as a Brahmin's son, learning as much as he can and trying to achieve enlightenment. One day, he happened to hear about an ascetic group called the Samanas whose sole purpose in life was to reach enlightenment. This opened up Siddhartha's mind to trying new methods of reaching enlightenment-- he realized that he doesn't have to follow the Brahmin way of life. This was his first call to adventure, but it is debatable whether it was a false call. It told him to leave his known world of the Brahmin to branch out to the Samana world. While living with the Samanas on his supposed new path, he hears about another way to reach enlightenment-- by following the teachings of the Buddha. This was his second (possibly 'real?') call to adventure. It led him to reject the world of teachings and find his own path without following someone. This call was incredibly important because he had never considered the option of not having a teacher before. This set up Siddhartha's mindset for the rest of the story, rejecting several teachers throughout the rest of the story. He ultimately achieves his goal when he successfully rejects teachers, which is what the call has set him up to do from the beginning. 

    Calls to adventure can come in many forms, but they all bring a lot of significance and substance to the story. They provide the character with the means to start their journey. This step has been implemented in both Star Wars: A New Hope and Siddhartha but each has their own unique interpretation of this step that serves an equally important purpose. Star Wars: A New Hope interprets the step more literally and explicitly makes the call Luke's ultimate goal in the story. Siddhartha does this more subtly, giving Siddhartha the mindset he needs to reach his goal but not allowing the reader to realize this until the end of the story. In both situations, the story relies on the the call to adventure, which allows the story a point to grow and mature from. 

Comments

  1. Daniel TFebruary 25, 2023 at 11:12 AM

    Great post! I agree that the nature of both Siddhartha and Luke's calls are very different. Siddhartha's real call in particular is hard to pinpoint. Leaving his home is not really a traditional call, in the sense that it does not put him on a particular path to something. In fact he already had the goal of enlightenment before his potential calls to adventure, so really they were all more of a realization that he was not going about his goals correctly. Could his true call have occurred way before he left for the Samana's?

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  2. Inniyew TesfawFebruary 27, 2023 at 1:24 PM

    I like your post, in particular the notion that Siddhartha has multiple calls to adventure. I also noticed while reading it that some of the steps of the hero's journey repeat, and that some parts of the story even have their own, smaller hero's journeys within the larger story

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  3. Aryan S.March 6, 2023 at 1:24 PM

    This is a really cool idea of comparing two storylines, and I agree with your analysis of the importance of the call to adventure in shaping the hero's journey. The call to adventure is the catalyst that sets the hero on their journey and is essential for character development and plot progression. It not only sets the tone for the rest of the story, but also provides a reason for the hero's actions and decisions.

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  4. Tracy LiMarch 7, 2023 at 9:22 AM

    Great blog post, Lisa! I think your take on Siddhartha and Star Wars skillfully fits both storylines in the Hero's Journey. The Call to Adventure comes in many forms, as you've illustrated, and their differences in the two stories don't detract from their importance to the plot---but demonstrate the diversity of how Hero's Journey templates manifest in fiction.

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