The contemporary study of history matters, as despite the separation of thousands, even tens of thousands of years, human behaviour and the lived human experience maintains the constant. Just as we hope, dream, aspire for the future, grow, fear, seek explanations of our environment and the phenomenon within, today, so too did the billions of lives before us. This blogpost investigates just a small sliver of how history parallels the present, focused on the Ancient Greek civilization and their use of heroes, through the lens of the Hero’s Journey. Among their countless social, cultural, and political contributions, arguably, their intricate and detailed mythos is the one of their most renown to the present day. The Ancient Greeks used heroes as a vehicle to pass on moral lessons and to attempt to explain their lived world. Through these stories we can glean what morals were important to them. This does not differ from how we presently continue to use stories. Let us look at examples from both the past and present to further understand what it means to be a Hero to the audiences of their respective times.
Starting with Ancient Greece, we look at Achilles, the Hero from Homer’s The Iliad, who fought against the Trojans. Achilles is known for his superhuman strength and skill at being a warrior. He is also mentioned as having a close relationship to the Gods, is honourable, a lover and full of pride (Homer). Another point to note is that despite wishing to live a peaceful life, Achilles feels that he must continue as a warrior and accomplish what can be perceived as “the greater good”. These attributes can also be seen in characters such as Heracles, Odysseus and Perseus, men who are also all deemed to be Heroes. This is not so different from modern iterations of heroes. If we look at a modern hero story, such as Batman, we can see a trend occurring in the values and morals of this character as well. Bruce Wayne, also known as Batman, loses his family which motivates him to wage war against crime. He becomes a skilled fighter and trains his body to peak human form. Love and honour push him forward, as he strives to rid his city of the criminals that took away his parents. Like Achilles, Batman too, places his duty to serve above all other things, including relationships and a normal life (DC Comics). Stories like Batman’s echo those of Superman, Spiderman, and Captain America.
These traits and values are clearly reoccurring, whether in the past or in the present. Due to the repetition of these traits, we can assume that they are reflective of what the audience wishes to see in their heroes, and, in themselves. We as people have never stopped facing problems that we solve and grow from, each time embarking us on the Hero’s Journey as described by Joseph Campbell, in his work, A Hero with A Thousand Faces. In the book, Campbell describes a twelve-step cycle that breaks down the main plot points of a Hero story. The points that are most relevant are the initial call of adventure, trials and tribulations, the ordeal, and the return to home (Campbell). We can relate these stages to each hero story examined above. For Achilles, his call to adventure is the beginning of the Trojan War, his trials and tribulations consist of the endless war as well as the death of his lover, his ordeal is the killing of Hector, and lastly, his return home is his death – which finally frees him. In comparison we have Bruce Wayne/Batman – his call to adventure is the death of his parents, his trials and tribulations consist of endless training to become a skilled fighter, his ordeal is adopting an identity other than himself in order to protect his city, and his return home is his taking place in Gotham City as the Batman. If we break down the other heroes mentioned in this blogpost, we will see the cycle once more. While this story structure is certainly useful as a literary device, it is how we, the audience, incorporate this structure to our own daily lives. We too strive to conquer our problems, be stronger, do what is right and be honourable. Though our lives may not present problems as grandiose as Heracles’ quest for immortality or Batman’s desire to wage war against crime that took his parents, our problems are important and therefore very real to us. We view ourselves as the heroes of our own stories with our own mountains to climb such as, getting a degree, getting a six-pack, or finishing this paper. Modern day heroes are iterations of past heroes, and so too, are we iterations of people of the past. Just as the Ancient Greeks strove to be honourable, do what is right and to face their problems with courage, the humans of modernity strive for the same. That is why we tell Hero stories – Heroes are glorified versions of ourselves, just as they were in the past.
We use heroes stories as the vehicles to tell of the good, the courage, the bravery, the trials and tribulations that we all must experience in our lives in order to move forward, to grow and succeed. This shows that despite hundreds of years, innovation of technology, deeper understanding of the sciences and the world around us, human nature remains a constant. As we look at our heroes as a source of aspiration, we also look at them as a mirror, as a glamorized reflection of ourselves. We hope to find the traits, morals, and values of our heroes within ourselves.
Works Cited:
“Batman.” DC, DC Comics, 20 Nov. 2020, www.dccomics.com/characters/batman.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed., New World Library, 2008.
De Chiara-Quenzer, Deborah. “Aristotle, Achilles, Courage, and Moral Failure.” Looking at Beauty to Kalon in Western Greece: Selected Essays from the 2018 Symposium on the Heritage of Western Greece, edited by Heather L. Reid and Tony Leyh, vol. 4, Parnassos Press – Fonte Aretusa, Sioux City, Iowa USA, 2019, pp. 189–202. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcmxpn5.17. Accessed 6 Nov. 2020.
EMERSON, DAVID L. “Mythology in Children's Animation.” Mythlore, vol. 38, no. 1 (135), 2019, pp. 259–266. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26809403. Accessed 20 Nov. 2020.
Hansen, William F. “Greek Mythology and the Study of the Ancient Greek Oral Story.” Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 20, no. 2/3, 1983, pp. 101–112. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3814523. Accessed 20 Nov. 2020.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture. Oxford University Press, 2020.
“The Internet Classics Archive: The Iliad by Homer.” Translated by Samuel Butler, The Internet Classics Archive | The Iliad by Homer, 1994, classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html.
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