A Review of Mythological Structure of "The Hero Within" in the Story of Bahram and Golandam based on Joseph Campbell and Pearson-Kumar Theory

The similarity between myth and story has brought about theories based on which recurring elements between myths and stories can be explored and analyzed. This research, borrowing a descriptive-analytical method and following the theoretical framework of Carol S. Pearson and Hugh K. Marr Psychological -archetypal analysis in "Awakening of the hero within", and Joseph Campbell's The “Hero's Journey” theory, tries to examine the process of the "hero within" journey in the story of Bahram and Golandam. The study tries to analyze the manifestation quality of archetypes throughout the journey to show that the hero of the folk stories, like the sages, can step into the process of individualism and starts the heroic journey via the manifestation of these archetypes. Analyzing the mythical structure of this story, it turned out that the story consists of three stages of “departure”, “initiation” and “returning” which pave the way for the advent of the archetypes. The hero starts the journey by leaving home, and then the explorer archetype begins. Throughout the journey, according to fictional situations, the inner hero archetype faces metamorphosis and other archetypes arise consequently. The most vivid archetypes of Bahram are “lover”, “explorer” and “warrior” when the end comes by forming a family which shows the "returning" stage to the home environment where the “ruler” archetype occurs. The results of this study show that the story of Bahram and Golandam has a mythical structure, and can be analyzed on the basis of the archetypes theories, due to its psychological approach.