Most of you have read Beowulf, The Odyssey, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Most of you have seen (if not read) Star Wars films or Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Lord of the Rings. What do all of these works have in common? Many people would say that the protagonists in all of these could be considered heroes. But are they? What is a hero? How do we define heroic actions or behavior? And can a woman be a hero(ine)? If so, why are there no women in that list above? If heroes serve as models of particular conduct, how would you define that conduct? Secondarily, what purpose do heroes serve to us as humans? Do we need them? Why? Bertolt Brecht once said, "Unhappy the land that needs heroes." What does this mean, in light of your understanding of what a makes a hero?
I find Joseph Campbell a fascinating person; I would call him extremely spiritual, yet not religious. His book, The Power of Myth redefined my grasp on philosophy; in their goals, religion and its requisite myths and philosophy are identical. Both try to find the “experience of being alive,” of finding a deeper kind of understanding so that what we do in the physical level will “have resonances within our own innermost being and reality.” Whether or not Campbell is correct in his conclusions, the use of myths as templates for living life is has a ring of truth about it by sheer argumentum ad populum. The universal myth of the hero is one of these “templates” that has been used from in stories, cultures, and generations far removed from each other.
To begin with, a hero is someone achieved something noble at the expense of something dear. There is always a give-and-take with heroes; part of what makes them so noble is because they had to sacrifice something significant for something more important than themselves. Of each of the works listed above that I have seen/read (The Odyssey, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings), each of the heroes has given something up in return for championing something universally accepted and admired. Frodo, despite some homesickness and uncertainty in the beginning of his long journey, stuck to the road on his long voyage to Mordor to destroy the Ring. Odysseus, despite already being the highly respected king of Ithaca, was immortalized by his valuable participation in the Trojan War and his long journey back home. For this he was estranged for twenty years from his family. Star Wars runs in a similar vein; although heroic individuals dominate the story line, the franchise eventually boils down to the transcending powers of good and evil.
I think this is the reason why humanity finds heroes so appealing, to the extent that they are a staple theme in our literature. Philosophy attempts to answer the questions, How does the world work, and how does humankind fit into it? Heroic stories do not answer these questions, but they provide examples of people that have answered these questions for themselves. Joseph Campbell talks about two kinds of heroes; one that has brought back some kind of knowledge to benefit humanity or physically accomplished some deed. In each, the hero is either making further progress into the question, “how does the world work” or finding his or her place in it. For the former, the hero is enlightening the rest of humanity with the wonderful knowledge he has obtained, in the latter, he is sacrificing himself for something larger than any individual. Luke Skywalker, for example, taps into the “force,” an energy that resides in all living things and entities. It is almost exactly how Bertrand Russell wrote “in contemplation... [of] the not-Self, through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity.” To answer the latter question, the hero brings back knowledge that brings us closer to knowing how the world works. The hero has reached a certain ideal, one that we admire and strive for; a hero is a template for finding an ultimate purpose or maturity in our individual lives.
With these guidelines for the definition and purpose of a hero, I see no reason why a woman cannot be considered a hero. The reason woman were not featured as heroes in earlier stories may be attributed to their social status during the time these myths that we live by today were being evolved. Myths not only have to evolve collectively over time to embody “truths” that are true for a culture or society, but they also have to be believable. It’s hard to imagine a housewife transcending the “private world” for the “infinity of the universe” sometime in between making breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
With the above in mind, I would have to disagree with Brecht’s statement. If in a hypothetical world everyone had achieved the hero’s journey there would be still a higher level of being to reach. I don’t believe in absolutes; I think that everything exists in comparison. If everyone were a hero, no one would be a hero. We must always have something to strive for.
