1. Chuck's ordinary world is disrupted when he is called away on a work trip just as he sits down for Christmas dinner with his wife. 2. He reluctantly leaves on the trip but his plane crashes into the sea, leaving him stranded alone on a deserted island. 3. Chuck struggles to survive on the island, learning to hunt, build shelters, and start fires. He overcomes his loneliness by befriending a volleyball named Wilson. 4. After years stranded alone, Chuck is finally rescued by a passing cargo ship. He returns home a changed man, having survived a harrowing experience that taught him independence and perseverance in the face of adversity.

1. Cast Away
A Hero’s Journey
By: Kareem Ascha

2. Departure (Separation)

3. The Ordinary World
•This is the hero’s home environment,
where his friends and family are. This
is where the story begins, so that
when the hero is separated it is
obvious. This doesn’t have to a be a
necessarily safe environment as long
as the hero feels connected to it.
•For our hero, Chuck, the ordinary
world is anytime he is in contact with
civilization (i.e. working with other
people from FedEx or having dinner
with his wife).

4. Call to Adventure
•The hero is summoned to an
unknown or foreign world. The hero’s
old ideals and concepts no longer fit
the present situation and the hero
must pass the threshold soon. By
chance this unknown world revealed
and the hero is forced to leave.
•The call to adventure in Cast Away is
when Chuck’s beeper goes off during
the Christmas dinner and he is called
away to South Asia.

5. Refusal of the Call
•This is essentially a refusal of the
call to adventure, a refusal to give up
what one takes to be one’s own
interests. The hero does not regard
the future in terms of an unremitting
series of deaths and births. He views
his current system of ideals,
concepts, and goals as fixed and
secure. This can be the remarkable
refusal to respond to anything but the
deepest, highest, richest answer to
the as yet unknown demand of some
wanting void within.
•Following the call, Chuck wants to
stay back and enjoy Christmas with
his wife and tries to figure a way out
of leaving, but eventually he is forced
to go.

6. Supernatural Aid
•This is an assistance that can come
in the form of a protective figure or
elder. It provides the adventurer with
amulets against the dragon he is
about to pass. The supernatural
figures represent a benign, protecting
power of destiny and represent the
forces of the unconscious at the
hero’s side
•In Cast Away the various packages
that come from the wrecked plane are
a supernatural aid to Chuck as they
help him survive on the island.
Particularly the volleyball Wilson who
acts as a sort of protective figure and
helps him keep his sanity. Also in the
movie the piece of the porta-potty that
washes up on the beach serves as a
sail for his raft.

7. Crossing the Threshold
•The hero ventures in to an unknown
world which breaks tradition and the
hero meets a dangerous presence. He
encounters a “threshold guardian” at
the entrance to the zone of magnified
power. Beyond this entrance to this
zone is darkness, the unknown and
foreign land.
•When the plane crashes into the sea,
Chuck fights the storm (threshold
guardian) on his inflatable boat in
order to get out of harms way and
eventually reach the island (zone of
magnified power)

8. In the Belly of the Whale
•The sphere of rebirth (Jonah); a
realm of darkness; the hero is
swallowed into the unknown womb-like
darkness (represents
unconscious). The hero goes inward
to be reborn. This gives emphasis to
the lesson that the passage of the
threshold is a form of self-annihilation.
•When Chuck lands on the island he
is inside the belly of the whale

9. Initiation

10. The Road of Trials
•The hero experiences miraculous
tests or ordeals on the road of trials.
He finds parts of himself he was
unaware of and assimilates his
unexpected self. The advice, amulets,
and secret agents of the supernatural
helper covertly aid the hero.
•Chuck is on the road of trials as he
learns how to survive on the island
(hunt, cook, start a fire, etc)

11. The Meeting with the
Goddess •This when the hero meets the
goddess who offers promise of
perfection, everything. It represents
the totality of what can be known.
This goddess is the promise of
perfection
•Cast Away has NO Meeting with the
Goddess

12. The Woman as Temptress
•The woman as temptress represents
an anti-life attitude; the woman is evil
and may lead the hero astray. The,
woman as the great symbol of life
and tainted with the odor of the flesh,
is intolerable to the pure soul of the
hero.
•The big rock is the temptress to
Chuck as it provides a place where he
ponders on whether or not he should
hang himself and just end it all.

13. Atonement with Father
•The father symbolizes judgment; the
hero overcomes this fear and
judgment. This stage shows growth
and the ability to take on adult
responsibilities. It shows the
movement from the realm of mother
to that of the father
•When Chuck finally finishes his raft
and overcomes his fear of leaving the
island to the open sea he has reached
his atonement with father

14. Apotheosis
•The hero is in a divine
state( ecstasy). He goes beyond the
last terrors of ignorance. The hero
recognizes the “big picture” (spiritual
understanding can be known). The
hero becomes free from all fear,
beyond the reach of change.
•Chuck is in his divine state as he
first unfolds the sails of his rafts and
begins to overcome the waves which
have kept him trapped on the island
for so long

15. The Ultimate Boon
•The hero seeks the grace of the
Imperishable Being which is often
possessed by the gods. The hero
partakes of the sustaining substance
that makes his mind/body
imperishable. At times, the hero has
to trick the deities of their treasure,
the miraculous energy substance that
is imperishable.
•Chuck’s ultimate boon is when he
finally comes back into civilization
and the huge celebration that FedEx
prepared on his return.

16. Return

17. Refusal of the Return
•The hero should bring their wisdom
back to their kingdom of humanity.
The hero can refuse a return; attains
or experiences death in ecstasy.
Often the hero wishes to remain in
isolation with his boon.
•Chuck’s sheer nervousness in
suddenly being brought back into
civilization, back into the modern
world scares him as he ponders what
has happened to the world as he
knew it while he was on the island in
isolation

18. Magic in Flight (Chase)
•If the hero has the blessings of the
goddess or god, his final adventures
will be supported by all the powers of
his patron. If the he has achieved his
trophy against the opposition of its
guardian, the final stage of his
adventure may become, a lively
sometimes comical pursuit. The hero
needs magical assistance to return.
He realizes a responsibility to teach.
•Chuck is in magic in flight as he
frantically travels across the open
ocean trying to find land or a ship.
And also when he hysterically chases
Wilson the Volleyball who fell off the
raft but ends up too far away to
retrieve.

19. Rescue from Without
•The world may have come to retrieve
the hero. And the hero will lose and
then regain his ego from being
rescued.
•Chuck is rescued from without while
he is out on the open ocean and the
and a large cargo ship comes by and
picks him up.

20. Crossing the Return
Threshold •There is a difficulty in the hero’s
return; the world has changed and so
has the hero. The hero assimilates
the Self (ego) with the Other; he is
now capable of fusing opposites (life
and death, good and evil). This
returning hero must survive the
impact of the world; he may not be
able to verbalize the wisdom he has
gained through his journey.
•Chuck crosses the return threshold
as soon as he steps off the plane and
into the FedEx party, back into
civilization.

21. Master of Two Worlds
•The hero has attained wisdom in
both the spiritual and material world
(conscious world). He gives up
completely all attachment to his
personal limitations, hopes and fears.
The hero no longer tries to live but
willingly relaxes to whatever may
come up to pass him. The boon that
the hero brings restores the world.
•Chuck becomes a Master of Two
Worlds when he returns to visit his
wife and looks at how the world has
changed since the plane crash.

22. Freedom to Live
•The hero reconciles the fact that
every creature lives on the death of
another (a reconciliation of universal
consciousness with the universal
will). He learns never to be afraid of
the next moment (destruction or
change), he has learn “to be” (exist)
•Chuck reconciles the freedom to live
when he returns the FedEx package
he never opened to the woman that
originally owned it and then leaves
for the road.