Heroes Deal With Their Problems

In searching back through our other texts about heroes and what defines someone as one, I came across Joseph Campbell's article. In essence, he summarizes my reasoning for not labeling any of the main characters in The Family of Max Desir as heroes, which is that "the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those casual zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to…eradicate them in his own case" (Campbell in Bump 5). Rather than 'eradicate' their inner demons, Marie, John, and Max all try to avoid them by turning instead to obsessions and addictions.

We first see in Marie this dangerous habit of obsession when her brother, Dan, falls ill. I understand that compassion literally means "Suffering together with another" (Bump 126), but Marie "seemed to have made the decision to decline as Dan declined, to release her grip on life until he regained his," which sounds a lot more like giving up than helping to me. After all, another part of the definition for compassion is being "moved…by the desire to relieve [suffering]," which Marie is utterly failing to do. A hero finds strength when others are weak in order to help lift them out of suffering; they do not seek to join others in their weakness. Another of Marie's obsessions is shopping, "an activity she enjoyed and even needed as an expression of hope, satisfaction, anxiety" (Ferro 5-6, emphasis added). Stress-relief is one thing, but her obvious excesses ($2000 worth) lead the reader to question her ability to cope with any sort of high-pressure situation.

John also does not seem to cope well with stressful events, as we notice after Marie's death. Besides his sudden keen interest in both the church and the craps table (both arguable addictions), he becomes obsessive about Marie's funeral, burial, and anything else to do with her now that she's gone. Not only is he "as lavish as he dared" in his spending on the burial; he engrosses himself to the point where "he constantly wondered what Marie would have done or wanted or insisted on, and then did the same" (166). If John is not able to deal with his grief and move on with his life, he can't possibly be present and helpful to the people still left in his life.

Max is arguably the hero of the story, however despite the positive and noble qualities he exhibits (admitting to his parents that he is homosexual, staying despite tensions to help his dying mother, etc) he lets his sexual drive consume him throughout the entire novel. When he is first discovering his sexuality, the "impulse to flee the palace in search of men was a command…an addiction constantly appeased, constantly growing" (58), and even though it calms down in his more-adult years, it still poisons his life and relationships. Even though he loves Nick and asks himself multiple times why he bothers staying, he remains in a relationship with Clive that he knows is purely physical and that he often detests. This relationship affects those around him in a negative way because it affects Max's emotional state in a negative way.

Basically, no one can be a hero unless they first, like Campbell says, deal with their own issues. Once they do that, they can be available to help those around them. The characters in Ferro's novel, although nice and likeable people in many ways, are simply not past that first step of eradicating their inner demons. The obsessions and addictions each one struggles with must be overcome before they can really be heroes to anyone.