A 'Hero' Through the Ages

So we've seen multiple examples of heroes in our readings now, but have we determined what it really means to be a 'true hero'? Is it your typical knight-in-shining armor? Or is it the proud and powerful Hercules-figure of the GrecoRoman philosophy?

We have seen that both of these figures, as well as many others, can be called heroes. As Emily mentioned in her post, our class has now analyzed the image of the hero so much that we have come up with a very good definition for this archetype. I would like to point out the core characteristics that all these heroes, no matter what society they came from, have in common according to our class discussions.

Fighting the good fight
Every hero fights against something, and they are remembered and celebrated especially for overcoming an evil or temptation of some kind. We see this with Sir Gawain overcoming the temptations offered by the queen of the castle and eventually overcoming the fear of death itself. There is no question that the Greco-Roman heroes also embodied this characteristic. In the example of Achilles, literature tells us that he knew if he went to fight in the Trojan War that he would die there, yet he went and he fought. Heroes are active, and they are a catalyst for change. They do not, however, fight mindlessly. Each hero we have encountered was responding to a higher calling of some sort. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of 'the high plane of dignity and discipline,' and 'the majestic heights of…soul force' in connection with his mission for the civil rights movement (Bump 122). Jesus is an even more extreme example of following this higher calling. Throughout his ministry he insisted he was merely doing "the works which the Father hath given [him] to finish, the same works…bear witness of [him], that the Father hath sent [him]" (John 5:36 in Bump 85). Even the fictional hero Superman was literally sent from out of this world in order to fight evil and restore justice. In the movie Superman Returns we hear the words of Jor-El, Superman's father, that explain this mandate: "They can be a great people, Kal-El, when they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son" (Jor-El in Superman Returns).

The damsel in distress
So, yes, a hero fights, but the next important characteristic that we've all come to agree on is that the hero is fighting for something other than himself. This week's readings spoke especially about passion and the leaders that went down in history as heroes because they followed their passion. MLKJ felt extremely passionate about civil rights, so passionate that he stood up to do something about it. He was not just fighting for himself, but rather "to end the long night of captivity" for all African-Americans, which elevated him from being a role-model to being a hero (Bump 121). This trait incorporates the selflessness and compassion that we have looked more closely at in this past couple posts. We can easily see this compassion in heroes like Ghandi and Mother Theresa, who preached non-violence and the message of ahimsa, but even in the Greco-Roman tradition we find evidence of compassion. For example, there was a tradition of preparing and burying the dead that was so vitally important in their society that wars would be halted so that each army would have time to perform these rituals. I also admired how leaders in the Greek army were always described as fighting right alongside their soldiers in battle, rather than commanding forces at a distance. As Pallavi mentioned in her post, a real leader and hero understands the pain first-hand.

Redemption
The last core trait we have come across consistently is that of redemption. There are two kinds, however. The first is redemption for self, which we see as a process all flawed heroes must go through. Sir Gawain must be redeemed by the Green Knight, and from then on he wears the garter as a symbol of his redemption from fear. Hercules' ten labors were atonement for his sins, and we see an even more dramatic redemption when he burns to death on a pyre and is resurrected as an immortal god. Once the hero has gone through his own redemption, "his second solemn task and deed…is to return then to us, transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed" (Cambell in Bump 6). This ties in very closely with the idea of the 'damsel in distress,' however it implies a more permanent sense of saving. For example, when the Greek hero Theseus defeated the Minotaur, it represented not only the saving of the nine other captives with him that would have been eaten by the monster, but it also saved all future captives and relinquished Greece from the control King Minos had previously held. In the hero Jesus we read that "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved," and that included all people past and future (John 3:17 in Bump 30).

When we take these three characteristics as our definition of a hero, we see that they are flexible enough to fit in figures from all ages and philosophies. Superman fits, Gawain fits, Jesus fits, Ghandi fits…even my dad fits! So even though it seems that typical modern-day heroes are more concerned with compassion and that heroes of, say, the Greeks were all muscle, they actually held much more in common beneath the surface.