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Friday, October 10, 2008

Archetype of the Hero

[It might seem this topic doesn't relate to politics, but stick with me. It and the next one will be tied up by a third.]

As someone who writes, I am interested in the archetype of the hero. One of the best books on the hero as archetype is probably by Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" about the hero's journey. What are the characteristics that makes someone a hero? Books and movies are full of heroes and anti-heroes. What must a hero do to be so declared? Can a hero lose his mantle?

Taking two films, available on DVD, '300' and 'Beowulf,' I thought it would make possible a look at two types of hero. These films illustrate the modern slant on heroism as well as the mythology that leaves us these stories and names many many years after the hero's death.

In the film, 300, a story of ancient Sparta, the hero is King Leonidas, a man set in a world that was beautiful, mystical, brutal, and tragic, where men were trained from childhood to be warriors, to give their all for their cause and their people.

300
is a fictionalized version of the Battle of Thermopylae when the Persians were invading Greece and a small band of Spartans, led by Leonidas, stood off a huge army for three days.

Leonidas is the kind of hero who doesn't second-guess what he does. He knows how to love his woman, his child, his men, and his country. He has a strategic sense of what matters and stays focused on it at all cost.

What Leonidas does for his honor is more important than anything else. He has no doubts because the training has been ingrained his entire life. It does not come and go from him. He doesn't stumble into hero-hood. He knows the cost of what he is doing. He is a highly skilled warrior, but being a warrior is a tool for the greater goal in his mind-- protecting his culture. Personally, he wants glory but the right way through honor.

Beowulf, in one of our modern westerns, would be the professional gunmen who comes to town to rid it of the bad guys. Beowulf, if he existed, which is possible, was into that gig when English literature was still being barely written down. He was a monster and giant slayer who didn't mind enhancing his reputation to increase his pay.

Heroes do heroic deeds and some are noble in their doing of them; some get a little ignoble but rise eventually to being true to the hero creed. Beowulf fell into the latter category. He was into it for himself, wanted the reputation of being a hero, but in the end was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of others.

It takes a mythological deed (or many of them) to be a hero whose story is still being told a thousand years later. Heroes of that stature generally have spent their lifetimes being heroic. There are heroes who do these kind of deeds and deserve heroic recognition, but they won't be talked about for a thousand years.

The archetype of the hero is strength, willingness to do what needs doing, the ability to carry out what is required, living by a code, and sometimes, when it's an anti-hero, doing it in spite of himself/herself.

The word, hero, is bandied around often, books are full of heroes who aren't mythic; but when they are, like Ulysses, Hercules, Alexander, and others down through history, they won't be forgotten by tribes far removed from their own.

In looking at the mythology of heroes, they all wanted their names to be held proudly. Money wasn't their only goal. Sometimes they would even refuse money as they knew there were things that mattered more. Above all was a reputation that would withstand the test of time. You could become a king and still go down in history as a monster.

Like Alexander, Leonidas, of 300, was based on a real king of Sparta in 480 B.C. The character of Beowulf, in the fictional fragments (8th to 11th century), in the old English, may have been fiction, as were possibly King Arthur, Ulysses, and Hercules, but based on actual historic personages. Exaggerating for artistic or political purposes obviously isn't new.

9 comments:

Kay Dennison said...

Great post!!!!!!! I think we're short on heroes of late. What a pity!

Darlene said...

Great heroes like great literature stand the test of time. The heroes would be forgotten if it weren't for the author of their stories.

Some heroes are not recognized in their lifetime and many heroes are found in other places then the battlefield.

Sylvia K said...

Okay, you got me, I'm ordering the videos! I've always loved the hero's stories, maybe I'm a romantic, but these days they're hard to find. I have one in Obama, I just hope he stays safe to write his story on our country.

Allan Erickson said...

good stuff Rain...

In recent times I point to a line from an old Gil Scott-Heron song, Winter in America:

It's winter; winter in america
and all of the healers have been killed or forced away.
It's winter; winter in america
and ain't nobody fighting 'cause nobody knows what to save.


We have had heroes in modern times but they keep getting shot. Lone assassins (wink wink nudge nudge...) and all that theme type stuff. Our heroes today don't come wearing swords, or guns... they come in the spirit of Martin, the Mahatma, Bobby and John... and that Mexican fella, Jesus...

I eagerly await the next installment...

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Not all heroes have been shot. Some of them are Woodrow Wilson, Ike Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Churchill, Golda Meier, and the Dahli Lhama.
And some heroes from ancient times have been killed like Jesus Christ.

Ingineer66 said...

Parapluie why is Woodrow Wilson one of your heroes? I am curious. I always thought he was responsible for the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles which led to WWII.

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Ingineer,
I am happy to defend President Woodrow Wilson. In his own words, "I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that ultimately fails." His words rings true to me today in looking at our occupation of Iraq. The surge has only a momentary effect. There will be no lasting victory if we are lone mavricks policing the world. We need to rediscover Woodrow Wilson's dream.
He also said, "There is no higher religion than humam service; to work for the common good is the greatest creed." I am not the only one who sees woodrow Wilson as heroic.The entire main cathedral of our National Cathedral is a history of all the heroes of many countries of the world. Each country has a sculpture of their heroes of choice first sculpted in clay by Marian Breckinridge and sent to Washington DC for stone carver Episcapal priest John Satterly. John Satterly was the person who first had the inspiration for the cathedral and saw it's development through completion. John Satterly not only carved a portrait of Woodrow Wilson but placed Wilson's casket in the main chapel in the middle of the right isle near the war and peace side chapel. The cathedral is a celebration of the kind of ethical vision President Woodrow wilson had - a place where all religions and peoples of our nation and the world can worship comfortably together at occasions of state. Our cathedral is like other cathedrals in telling in architecture the progress of man's quest for peace.

Ingineer66 said...

Thanks Parapluie for the explanation. I guess there are different view points to almost everything. I read many things I liked about President Wilson's foreign policies, but his segregationist anti-black views and efforts to keep women from attaining the vote make me think that you would not support him so strongly. I guess it is like some of our more recent presidents that have a good foreign policy but not such a good domestic record.

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Ingineer,
I find you partially correct that President Woodrow Wilson born in Virginia had by our standards a poor record on race relations. He thought he was protecting negroes by segregating them. Despite his Southern background and not accepting Negroes as equal to whites, he had a great deal of admirable accomplishments. He was overall supportive of the people's rights and in his first two years of presidency passed the most progressive reforms of any president before him. He reined-in industry to narrow the gap between haves and have-nots. January 9, 1918 Wilson announced support for women's sufferage. The Senate passed the Constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote nationwide June 4, 1919.