Notion "myths ans heroes"

MYTHS AND HEROES

I am going to talk about the notion « Myths and heroes ». First of all, I would like to give a definition of this notion : this notion can be defined as a story about gods or heroes. It can be a popular belief, or a tradition. A hero can be a mythological figure, a person who is admired for his/her achievements, a super-hero, or maybe a model or an icon. These heroes can teach, inform, warn or educate.

Last year in class we studied several documents about this notion, particularly some about heroes who fight crime. In order to illustrate this notion, I have chosen to talk about these heroes ans attempt to answer the question “What makes them heroes ?”

To answer this question I will present two documents and rely with examples of events day life.

The first document I have chosen is an article from the New York Time of October 27th 2007. It deals with superheroes who fight crime. This text talks about real life superheroes. These good Samaritans do charity work to help their fellow-citizens. Their mission is to keep honest citizens out of harm’s way ; they help the needy and weak and make the streets safer for everybody.

Trough this first document, the artist wants show us that even without having superpowers like Superman, we can all help and serve the needy. These real-life superheroes are useful as long as they are unarmed ans don’t break the law because they may really help the authorities to catch criminals.

The second document is a picture from the movie “Robin Hood” from 2010. We can see in the foreground Robin Hood dressed in green. He is a popular and heroic rebel, who is known for robbing from rich and giving to the poor.

He is standing up to tyranny and fighting injustice.

The director shows us a hero without superpowers but ready to do anything to help the others.

Trough this film, the author wants to show that there is no need to be rich and powerful to help other : you just have to want it and do everything for it.

These documents shows us that there is, in our world, some people who are ready to do anything to help make the world a better place. These people that we can call heroes are numerous, and we can cite some of them :

Nelson Mandela is a hero of the anti-Apartheid fight, he gave his entire life in this.

Some like Emma Watson, or Vanessa Paradis fight for the equality between man and woman. Others like Sophie Marceau, or Pamela Anderson fight against the animal abuse.

I totally agree with the fact that not all heroes wear capes. A hero is someone who is both strong and daring, and who has other qualities like courage, selflessness, generosity and honesty. A hero has also the power to change the world and to put wrongs to right.

He endures hardship, danger and transmits basic moral values such as courage and honesty.

For all these reasons, who ares the ones who make a hero what he is, we can say that real life superheroes like street hero or the Super and Robin Hood are heroes, since they have all the qualities that make a hero.

All of these people have the power to change the world and to make it a better place, so we could place them in the notion “idea of progress”.

To conclude, being a hero isn’t having wonderful superpowers. It’s being humble, brave, generous, strong, honest and ready to help people. That’s what places Robin Hood and the others in the category of heroes. So we could also put other real-life superheroes as firefighters or policemen.

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