Thinking about the Hero

One day in kindergarten my teacher told the class to draw a picture of a hero. I started drawing the Pink Power Ranger however, Mrs. Walsh sternly advised me to reconsider my subject. “A hero,” she told me, “doesn’t have to be pretend or super” and she insisted I pick a “real-life” person, like a firefighter. I went home that day with a rolled-up drawing of a fireman; I knew that my teacher designated him an acceptable hero, but I didn’t understand why. In the world of a five year old girl, selflessness and courage are just words, but fighting “bad guys” in a pink costume is heroic.
Those we consider heroes possess the qualities we most admire. Thus, some revere Batman as much as others do Martin Luther King Jr. However, this abstract concept of heroism makes defining a hero difficult; oftentimes, we end up with a variety of clichés instead of a solid classification. We commonly hear the assertion that heroes “do what’s right” and “never give up,” but we rarely hear what the right thing to do is, and what they are not giving up from. If we refer back to the story of Robinhood we’ll remember that he is hailed for stealing. Despite the multitude of traits people seek in heroes, and the many definitions of “right” and “wrong” a few aspects of heroism seem to stretch across both time and universe. Heroes always fight for a noble cause, they endure sort of hardship, and they never do deeds looking for heroic recognition. Even though stealing is universally accepted as immoral, we consider Robinhood a hero. How can we make such a contradiction? Robinhood steels from the greedy villains because he seeks justice, not personal gain; therefore he is an acceptable hero.
Because humankind generally agrees on these aspects of heroism, a common string of characteristics weaves through our heroes. Courage, conviction, morality, altruism, and physical and/or mental strength, we may find, repeat themselves in newspaper stories, classic literature, and mythology. If all people are striving to be the best human beings possible, it is clear what qualities society deems important to attain.
Many of the well-known heroes we emulate happen to be men; however, this occurrence is not because more male heroes exist than female. As unfortunate as it may be, men have dominated societies for countless time periods. As a reflection of this dominance, the male heroes commonly outshine their female counterparts in stories both modern and ancient.
Essentially, heroes represent human passion for life. Our creation and/or perpetuation of these stories of extraordinary deeds reflects our inherint desire to keep the human spirit alive. I disagree with Bertold Brecht’s notion that only communities in turmoil need heroes. Heroes, whether existing in myth or in reality, serve as symbols of virtue and moral strength; their stories inspire even when there are no cities to save or criminals to punish. Hopefully one day there will be no need for heroes to save the world from moral decay and self-destruction; however, it will probably take a hero to get us to that point, and his/her name will undoubtedly be remembered through the arts like so many others.