People often associate “heroes” with “super heroes.” The images that appear in their minds involve capes billowing in the wind, damsels in distress, and some kind of supernatural ability (such as flying or X-ray vision). However, a true hero does not need to have super strength in order to be considered a hero. To quote Bette Midler’s song, “Wind Beneath My Wings,” a hero is a person who we admire, someone who is “everything [we] would like to be.” Therefore, we can see where the concept of a “super hero” comes from, for we do admire super heroes and they possess heroic attributes that we see in heroes of the not-as-“super” nature.
These role models that are our real-life society’s “heroes” possess certain qualities. They require a selfless confidence, a strength of mind, most often a tendency to lead, and a strong sense to spread good in the world (rid the world of evil, if you will). These people who meet these criteria are the people we look up to because they actively take a part in making the world a better place. Now, whether our heroes are in a position of power, for instance the president of a charity who devotes his or her life to raising funds to find a cure for cancer, or merely a woman who stops in the street to help an old man carry his groceries, they do their part to spread kindness, and often do so without a desire for recognition. I find that people often cannot see the heroes of the world because of their silent, selfless contributions to society.
I agree that people consider the protagonists of works such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey to be heroes, but they do so for the wrong reasons. When reading books or watching movies that have a very clear protagonist who carries the plot and whose actions determine the culmination of the story, it is easy to think of that character as the hero of the story. We do this because we see that image of a super hero flying across our brains and think of such things as power and responsibility. We assume that clearly the character has a certain amount of power and responsibility because the author made him or her the protagonist (most often “him”), thus his actions are generally most important.
However, I believe that in order to determine whether or not a protagonist is a true hero, one must examine his character and actions, not just his role in the plot of the novel/movie. This does not mean that some protagonists are not heroes, in fact many of them are, but to see why they are heroes, we must do some analysis first. For instance, Huckleberry Finn is considered a hero. He is the star character of Twain’s picaresque novel, and in true picaresque form, Huck is often considered an anti-hero. In other words, from adventure to adventure Huck’s actions may not be morally “good” or “appropriate” especially for the time period in which Twain wrote his novel, but his actions help him out of some kind of bad situation. For example, in the beginning Huck runs away from Widow Douglas and her all of her attempts to “sivilize” Huck go out the window. From the reader’s point of view, Huck escapes a horrid life based on slavery and racism. We admire his courage to follow his own desires, which may seem selfish, however in analyzing Twain’s novel as a whole, Huck’s escape is truly for the greater good. He symbolically breaks down barriers of Southern values and proves he possesses the selfless confidence, strength of mind, leadership, and desire to spread kindness in the world that heroes should possess. On the other hand, from the perspective of the audience who read Huck Finn when it was first published, Huck may have been the opposite of a hero.
This suggests an interesting notion about heroes: one man’s hero is another’s villain. Time and place factor in greatly when we talk about heroes, for instance a Vietnam War soldier in Vietnam may have been seen as a hero in our eyes, but a terrifying predator in the eyes of the Vietnamese people. The works mentioned in the question, Huck Finn, The Odyssey, Beowulf, and movies like Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Star Wars all have male protagonists. We can argue that the reason women are not the protagonists of these works is at the time of their creation, women were still seen as inferior to men intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Thus, authors might think it strange to have a woman as the protagonist because she simply is not be as “heroic” as a man; she is weaker. But is that the case? Ellen Foster and Elizabeth Bennett might beg to disagree. Over time as women have gained rights and respect, more and more authors use women as their protagonists and give them heroic attributes.
It does not matter what gender, race, or religion a hero is, what matters are the persona and behavior of the hero. I think we do need silent heroes in our society because a world full of selfish followers would seriously harm the progress of humanity. Bertolt Brecht’s quotation, “Unhappy the land that needs heroes” means a place in which no one naturally steps up as a kind-hearted, courageous member of society is a very ill functioning place indeed. Also, as mentioned before, a true hero will not seek recognition for his or her actions. A land that “needs” heroes is a land that does not see the heroes that walk around on the street everyday; it is a land that is oblivious to the heroes they already have and do not realize that sometimes the best kind of heroes are the ones we cannot detect.
