Myths and heroes : how myths and heroes inspire our lives ?

Myths and heroes

I'm going to deal with the notion of myths and heroes. First I give a quick definition of this notion. A mith is a story about gods or heroes which can be real or fictional, secondly a hero can refers to a mythological figure. It's a person who is admired for his achievements, his courage and his qualities. So I would like to try to answer the question how myths and heroes inspire our lives ? To answer this question I will use three documents studied this year. I will start with Manifest Destiny after that I will deal New York Blackout 1977 and to conclude I would like to talk about the myth of Route 66

The first document is Manifest Destiny by John Gast. It's a painting that represents an allegory of the modernization of the New West. Colombia, which is at the center of the painting, is a personification of the United States, is shown as the leader of civilization towards the West with the American colonist. It brings light from East to West, wired the telegraph wire, holds a textbook that represents knowledge, and highlights different stages of economic activity and changing forms of transportation.

My second support tells the story of the blackout that occurred in New York in 1977. The blackout was emblematic.Lightning strikes wiped out a power line in Westchester causing the Indian Point generating station that lit most of the city to crash as well.And the damage during the 25 hour blackout was vast the New York Times reported that 1,000 fires had been set by arsonist and 1,600 stores ransacked.

All the elements of this blackout that turned this incident into a mythical night are emblematic for the inhabitants because that night was very hard because there was a rise in temperatures that became unbearable.This blackout was for New Yorkers, a very hard time to bear.

My third support speaks of the myth of Route 66. It is a highway that runs through the United States from Chicago (Illinois) to Santa Monica California, built from 1926 to 1938. It is 3945 kilometers long. During the Great Depression, some farmers took this route to California where they hoped to find a better future. It is also a very touristic road where you can admire Grand Canyon, or visit ghost towns of the old Far West. Nowadays, we can find films based on this famous road. He also appears in some cartoons today like Cars 1. However, today this road has lost some interests because of the developing highways and the lack of interest in history.

To conclude, we can say that on the one hand the myths inspire us because they bring us what we have to understand for the history of America despite being fictional. On the other hand, myths are more and more forgotten nowadays.

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