Myths and Heroes

Oral d’anglais

Notion : Myth & Heroes

The notion I’m going to talk is Myth & Heroes. First of all, I’m going to define this notion. A myth is a true or fictitious story. It tells important and extraordinary, facts. Traditionally, the myth is an oral narrative, transmitted from generation to generation to explain events that form the culture, identity, and practices of a society. It can also carry a moral. The myth is always based on symbols and figures that are both universally recognized and specific to the society in question (heroes).

Secondly a hero refers to a mythical or legendary person. He can also be a person who has, or has not, existed, and who is admired for his extraordinary achievements, qualities, and his courage.  Thus, the hero embodies moral values such as honour, courage, generosity and justice as well as physical values such as beauty, strength and endurance. Besides, we can't dissociate the myth from its hero. Indeed, it is the myth that makes the hero an icon, a god because it places him in situations that are always glorifying and beneficial.

Problématique: When fictitious heroes fail, who saves the day ?

Plan: To mi mind the document that best illustrates how to describe a myth and a hero is …

1. The failure of fictitious heroes
2. Real heroes are everyday people

Firstly, the document under study is a picture from an unknow artist. We don't know the date but we can guess it from this picture. At the beginning we can see on the background a character (a Super heroes). He’s wearing red gloves, a helmet surrounded by wrings a costume representing a star and a shield, the colour flag of USA. In the foreground we observe a skyline with building and black smock coming from them. Lastly, there are a lot of dark colorized on the pic as Black, dark red, orange and purple. They seem do represent the dangerous situation. Plus, it's loosely linked to the black smock witch could come from a building burring a crash even an explosion. With all this information we come to think the situation represented is NYC on 9.11.

Secondly, this document is a cover of a comic book. This issue is a tribute to the victims and heroes of 9.11. The cover shows Superman wearing his cape and turning his back on us as he looks at doctors, nurses, firemen, builders, lawyers. In both images, the hero is portrayed the same way. In the first picture, he's holding his head in his hand. In the second, the characters are depicted taller than Superman, standing proudly, banging his chest and looking down on Superman as he looks at them and says "wow" according to the bubble, as if he is shocked or surprised and impressed by the people behind the fence.

You can see that despite the fact that they fully meet the criteria of "superheroes", they are powerless in this situation and can do nothing.

II- The most famous superheroes are spider-man, Iron man, Batman , etc. They are considered as superheroes for their moral qualities, their skills and especially because they fight evil. Artists draw parallels between real people and fictional famous heroes to highlight the actions of everyday people, to pay tribute to real heroes.

Through his documents, we can see that the real heroes are not the ones we have admired since childhood. Indeed, as said before, they are useless, they are just observing.

...