Synthèse myth and heroes

I picked the notion myth and heroes. First of all, I’m going to give a short definition of the notion. A hero is a person admired for his achievements, noble qualities and great courage. They can be fictional like Superman, Batman and others…But here, we will focus on myth we studied in class. And the myth is a story about heroes, it can be a popular belief or a tradition or a false notion. In class, this year, we studied the topic of myth of the Manifest Destiny and the Space Race to illustrate the notion. We going to wonder if Manifest Destiny is a myth or reality?  To answer this question I'll explain what Manifest Destiny is, then I'll talk about Space Conquest, in the sixties, and finally, I'll talk about what's going on today.

For this, I have chosen 4 documents to deal with the notion of myth and heroes.

My first document is a video, it explains what Manifest Destiny is. The idea was born in the middle of 19th century. Pioneers believed they were destined to be a great nation. They wanted to move west because it represented freedom and opportunity. They wanted to expand territory, their culture, their government… Manifest Destiny is the myth of the creation and expansion of the American nation.

My second document is a painting by John Gast in 1872. This painting represents American Progress and the Conquest of the West. The woman in the middle is an allegory of the modernization of America. She’s stringing a Telegraph wire and holding a book the symbolized knowledge.

My third document is “Kennedy’s Moon Speech” in 1962. In this video, Kennedy refers to the space conquest, space race. He thinks the USA will reach the Moon very soon. He refers to the building of American and to Manifest Destiny: no rest, they have to move forward. There is a comparison with moving westwards and exploration of space. The idea of expansion and to push back the limits. He refers to Manifest Destiny again, they want to be first and they want to lead.

My fourth document is “Trump tells NASA to send astronauts to Mars, back to Moon” in December 2017. In this speech, Trump has an America's space program on human exploration and discovery. He explains that his goal is to schedule a trip to Mars but before that he wants to try to return to the moon. He ends his speech with this sentence: "We are the leader and we're going to stay the leader and we're going to increase it many fall." Which shows that they are determined to succeed. The myth of Manifest Destiny is still present today (=he refers to the myth in his speech)

To conclude, we can say the myth of Manifest Destiny is real because the Americans (and the Russians) have managed to reach their goal and they intend to start again even after 40 years of pause. America will always remain the leader. But is it a dream to live on Mars?

...