Myths and heroes: why are myths and heroes so important to our society?

Myths and heroes

The notion  I’m going to tackle is « Myths and Heroes » .
A myth is story passed from a generation to another, a belief from ancient achivement about gods and magic. This why the word was more used in the past unlike the term hero that is a lot more used in today’s society.
We can notice that there is two type of heroes :
The fictionnal ones that we can find in books or moovies as well as ordinary ones. These heroes are admired for their courage, their outstanding achievements and their noble qualities. They are not necessarily famous but show strenght, loyalty and bravery when in  difficult situations. They also perfom heroïc acts and help others thus becoming role models and icons for our society.
As said Jospeh Campbell, an american Mythologist and writer : « Myths are public Dreams but dreams are private myths ».

Why are Myths and Heroes so Important to our society ?

In order to illustrate this notion i will talk about the myth of « Manifest Destiny » then i will continue with Malala, a young pakistan. To conclude i will argue about Diego Maradona.

The Manifest destiny is a popular belief, a term for the attitude prevalent during the 19th century period of Amarican expansion that the United States not only could, but was destinated to, stretch from coast to coast. It express the belief that it was anglo-saxon American’s providential mission to expend their civilization and institutions across the breadth of north America. This expansion would involve nopt merely to territorial aggrandizement but  aslo the progress of liberty and individual economic oppurtunity as well. Moreover it should not be forgotten that John O’Sullivan used the term « Manifest Destiny » to express the westward expansion in 1845. This concepet became widely used, appearing in newspapers, paintings and advertissements. It became the leading light for tye westward expansion. Furthermore for O’Sullivan the white american had god-given right to occupy the entire north american continent with promises of inexpensive land and open spaces. One of the political motivations of western expansion is the desire to spread the democracy and the american way of life.

On the other hand, we have a new hero that quickly became a role model. Indeed I’m talking about Malala, a young girl that defied the Taliban in Pakistan. Her goal was to let girls have an education and she became the advocate of this cause. With the help of her father, she went to school and continued to fight for girls education. In early 2009, she began blogging for the BBC about living under the Taliban’s threats to deny her education. In 2012, a gunman shot Malala in her head when she was traveling home from school. She survived and has continued to speak out on the importance of education. Her story was known all over the world. At the age of 17, in 2014, she became the youngest person the receive the Nobel Peace prize. On july 12 2015, also called  Malala Day, the young activist continued to take action on global education by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon. One of her famous quote is  « We must invest in books instead of bullets ». We can affirm that she is  invested in global education.

To conclude, I  chose to talk about Diego Maradona. He’s an Argentinian football player deemed as a god, a myth and a hero in his native country. He became famous when he scored against England during the semi final of the wordlcup in Mexico in 1986. His action called the « hand of god » took Argentina to the final and to win the worldcup. Otherwise, this is not just a simple victory against England. Indeed this victory is a symbole of revenge. Why revenge ? Because in 1982, his anc country and the United Kingdom were in conflict : « the Falklands war ». This was a ten-week war between these two over two Bristish overseas territories in the South Atlantic. After this loss, the Argentinian people were deavasted until Maradona gave them the revenge they were waintig for. This is why he’s considered as god, a myth and a hero .

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