Synthèse pour l'oral d'anglais appronfondi terminal L

MYTHS&HEROES

INTRO : I’m going to talk about the notion of Myths&Heroes. To begin with,I’d like to state a definition of this notion. A myth, it’s a story about gods or heroes, who can be a popular belief, a tradition or a false notion. An hero can be a mythological figure. It’s a person admired for his or her achievements, courage and noble qualities. There are two types of heroes, the fictious heroes like Batman, Superman, Hercules (in mythology) and real heroes who lives in our society and even ourselves. Now , i propose to look at the question “Why is it important to have a personal hero ?” First of all, I will see the importance of having a hero, after the dangers too and then how can define the true heroism.

I) The importance of having a hero.

From our youngest age, we meet certains heroes present in comics, cartoons, movies and stories. As a child, we are passionate about these characters with strange looks and extraordinary abilities called superheroes. Strong , brave but also intelligent and good, the superhero represents a stimulating model. Often an orphan, the young superhero apprentice must embark on adventures, they go throught and accomplish feats with his fabulous powers. If at a certains age , he no longer expects to have the same abilities as his idol, he does not give up all his dream. As they grow, they become attached to figures that are more like them. They are also interested in their psychology by preferring complex, fragile or marginal figures closer to them. Even though, they still enjoy comic book superheroes, their favors also go to different characters ( who came out of the superheroes typology) like Harry Potter, Twilight vampires etc.. These often complex figures seduce at an age when it is “ reassuring to think that there is not on one side the good and the beautiful and on the other side, the evil and the ugly” but we lets brings both in us. We can also mention The legend of King Arthur, to combine heroes for all ages and generations and being a myth that goes through the ages. The legend of King Arthur is a corpus of written sources and images in constant evolution. Every time, since the Middle Ages, and more broadly each region and each social environment, was able, according to its needs, to create its Arthurian myth , by drawing in known episodes, adding characters, subtracting, and modifying narrative elements. By putting with the article of Scott Labarge “Why heroes are important”, Labarge draws a clear line between our modern conception of heroism and what it originally meant. According to the author of this article, having a hero is important because it helps you expand your possibilities, it entices you to try and do things you would otherwise think impossible.

II) The dangers too.

By defining the term “hero” or “heroine” , it refers to the main character of a fictional work, regardless of the qualities it displays. If his conduct does not correspond to an ideal ( for example if he is cowardly or greedy without fragilities), this here can be called an anti-hero. But can one finally define true heroism without the ally to a perfect ideal of superheroes. Indeed when you admire someone, you want them to be without blemish and can be severely disappointed you can also lose confidence in yourself and your own skills if you don’t manage to live up to the standards you set for yourself according to the personal hero you chose…Then , there is the question of limits. In our modern vision of that a hero is, we tend to see human beings as gods, we see then as perfect superior creature when in fact they are faillible. This is at once tricky and unhealthy.

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