I'll explain it briefly here, then we will look at how it is used in The Lion King. And yes it is a fact that TLK was inspired by the Monomyth.
So let's start at an introduction - The Monomyth was basically a hypothesis by Joseph Campbell. In his book "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" (1949) he compares mythologies and looks at what they have in common. We won't get too intrinsic to what this meant at the time, but it basically boils down to this:
[quote]2.1 Departure
2.1.1 The Call to Adventure
2.1.2 Refusal of the Call
2.1.3 Supernatural Aid
2.1.4 The Crossing of the First Threshold
2.1.5 Belly of The Whale
2.2 Initiation
2.2.1 The Road of Trials
2.2.2 The Meeting With the Goddess
2.2.3 Woman as Temptress
2.2.4 Atonement with the Father
2.2.5 Apotheosis
2.2.6 The Ultimate Boon
2.3 Return
2.3.1 Refusal of the Return
2.3.2 The Magic Flight
2.3.3 Rescue from Without
2.3.4 The Crossing of the Return Threshold
2.3.5 Master of Two Worlds
2.3.6 Freedom to Live[/quote]
Again, for the sake of reading and my fingers, I won't go too in depth to what each one of these means. But TLK follows this outline very closely, it does skip some steps mind you but the most important ones are all there.
Let's start with step 1: The Call To Adventure.
The call to adventure for Simba, is when Mufasa is telling him that "everything the light touches is our kingdom" and that it will one day be his. This sets Simba's fate (The Hero's Journey) into motion.
Next we have Refusal Of The Call. You could argue that TLK skips this. Star Wars is another example, Luke refuses to believe he is the student they are looking for. In TLK this could be when Simba rejects the idea of marrying Nala and when he says he will fire Zazu.
Supernatural Aid is next. In MOST stories, again looking at Star Wars, it would be when Luke receives the lightsabre, the hero gains something that will help them go through with their quest (hence it follows the refusal of the call). You could argue that with TLK, Rafiki serves as this.
So next we have the crossing of the first threshold. To quote Wikipedia [quote]This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.[/quote]
Clearly for Simba this is where he first enters the elephant graveyard.
Well, we will end this there for now I think. If you can put two and two together, you can probably see which parts of the Monomyth represent different parts of TLK (Atonement with the father being when Simba encounters Mufasa in the clouds for instance.)
Just thought I would share an interesting tidbit with you guys. If you want to read the Monomyth then track down a copy of The Hero With A Thousand Faces (IF you are a writer or have a story you want to make, I HIGHLY recommend researching this).
Otherwise you can look at other examples of The Monomyth at work by playing Journey, watching / reading Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (srsly, Harry Potter follows the Monomyth unbelievably closely), Star Wars...
In fact, most of your favorite stories, were probably inspired by this in some way. I just found out about it, found it incredibly intriguing for some reason and thought I would make a thread for it. Especially since Disney have openly said in interviews that many of their films follow the Hero's Journey.
^A simplified image depicting the cycle of The Hero's Journey.
