The hero is a "man admired for his achievements and qualities." So runs the most open-ended dictionary definition of the hero. Using this measurement, one might be led to believe that our world teems with heroes. Virtue and duty, good and evil, right and wrong do not necessarily enter into this contemporary definition. Fame is used to define the heroic--the exceptional, without regard to virtue or vice. At its best, this view of heroism can be applied to Sting, Lawrence Taylor, or Clint Eastwood as easily as George Washington. In the world Almanac's sixth annual polling of high school students, those asked to choose the individuals in public life they admire most awarded Eddie Murphy the highest honor as "Top Hero."
An older definition stresses courage and nobility as essential traits of heroism. The traditional hero lived by a code of honor marked by a sense of the Good. According to this definition, a person must be disposed to value certain things as more important than others, so that he is willing to take risks and endure hardships for their sake. Courage then is the victory of will--of self-control--over physical hardship when confronted with danger and the possibility of death. Nobility entails something more: a statue of dignity related to the hero's conscious acceptance of his destiny, often as leader and protector of a community. The fact that the hero not only performs great deeds but performs them out of worthy principles renders his deed even more admirable--the stuff of which legends or myths are made.
A third definition identifies the hero with the great man, "the central figure in any important event or period." This view goes back at least as far as the Homeric epics and was associated in the mid-nineteenth century with Thomas Carlyle, who believed that history is the biography of great men--such as Napoleon, Cromwell, and Alexander the Great. These were the figures who shaped human events by their energy and suffering. However, this definition is morally problematic, as history shows that great men can be inclined to great evil. Indeed, in our own century, one can point to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao as "event-making" figures who inflicted unspeakable torture on others.
Whatever the type of hero, whatever the definition offered, there seems to be agreement that the hero must be someone who has done something that others feel has positive value and meaning. On this level, the hero provides a link between us and society, between private and public beliefs, between our dreams and realities. The hero represents our deepest desires, our cultural ideals. On a psychological level, the hero struggles on our behalf against the "enemy" or "monster." His victory is our victory. Even the tragic hero who goes down in defeat evokes our sympathy because we find him and his cause worthy of our respect. He demonstrates that our deepest wishes and values are real, that they are worth defending. To use Nietzsche's term, we find him life-affirming. He opposes whatever is life-denying.
In our age, there seems to be little place for the hero. The antihero has emerged to take his place. The antihero may be defined as a person who does not consciously embody any value system. He is usually an antiestablishment figure. He arises out of the "wasteland" of modern society. Often regarded as a villain, at his most active he is a deracinated rebel without a cause. Perhaps his most pervasive and conspicuous characteristic is his loss of purpose, his inability to find any meaningful reason for existence. His plight is
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