Thinking About the Hero

The word “hero” is defined in the dictionary as a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. The two works of literature about heroes that I am most familiar with are The Odyssey and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In these works, as well as most others, the hero embarks on a life-altering journey. Therefore, I believe a hero is someone who not only possesses valor and other admirable qualities, but also sets out on journey that results in a new level of maturity or understanding of himself or something greater. Heroic actions and behaviors are meant to better someone or something, whether that may be the hero himself, another person, or even society. Heroes conduct themselves as an archetype of man. They are righteous and successful in achieving something: usually knowledge or understanding.

As a society, we tend to associate heroes with being male. This is because only in the past few hundred years have any women been recognized as heroines in literature. We have been molded to think only men are brave and strong enough to be heroes by reading about characters like Odysseus. However, more and more modern novels are beginning to have female heroines.

As humans, we use heroes as people to look up to and teach us lessons. I think we need them to continue to use as models of the people we aspire to be like. Nevertheless, we should not focus on imitating previous ones. Bertolt Brecht once said, “Unhappy the land that needs heroes,” meaning that heroes appear in a time when there is some sort of problem to be solved, so we only need heroes when we are unhappy and in need of help. Humans learn from the actions of past heroes to limit the number of heroes and heroic conquests in the future. The more knowledge heroes share with us, the less we need them.