Joseph Campbell's Fascination Of Heroes In Present Day Literature

modern day society, our fascination with heroes are boundless. As young children we aspired to be heroes on own right to save the world from the scrawny hands of evil and villains pot rates in everything from comics, cartoons to masterpiece literature such as .........The characters often does what is normally per cover as impossible and drive our fascination with their strong moral compasses for social justice and teach us important socio-cultural values. Heroes in the past and present day works can be best described in the words of Joseph Campbell, an early 20th century American mutual gist, best known for his work in comparative mythology, who wrote ".........". Interestingly Campbell describes opposing forces and villains, that inescapably
Some of today's most dangerous nemesis such as Loki, Darth Vader, and Joker has managed to get a large fan base that rival that of their heroes. This occurs not because of "If you can't beat them, join them" kind of thinking but because heroes are often defined by the characteristics of the villains. In modern day literature and other media villains provide a base of comparison to the heroes - a reason for one to classify an individual as a hero and also provide a reason for the existence of the hero. Occasionally villains endure their own demise by unwittingly sending an ordinary individual in a journey that will not only define their legacy as a hero but also bring out the unique characteristics that make the said individual a hero. Villains also serve as foil to the hero and thereby bring about the true greatness of the hero and also help depict socio-political culture at the time of the stories creation much similar to the hero. Today’s villains though destroying the world as we know it, manages to extract out sympathy by their little known but still very much alive back
If a hero goes searching for seemingly random individuals that not everyone in the general public is fully convinced as wrongful individuals and these people can be managed by the strong arms of the existing law, the hero then has a tendency to be characterized as a vengeful murderous vigilante. Penchant example of these figures are the likes of robin hood and green arrow, who are considered vigilante by the law not only because they steal but also by the fact they occasionally interfere with the law and sometimes take justice to their own hands. With a publicly disliked villain like Grendell that demolishes the very structure of society, as represented by is tyrannical occupancy of the Heorot hall, the whole society supports the hero in their efforts and hope for the best. While fictional public backing isn’t always a necessary component in the existence of the hero, without it a hero may suffer an early retirement. The batman trilogies final movie, Dark Knight Rises provides evidence of this as without the backing of Gotham citizens; batman has taken an early retirement after being discouraged to be the dark crusader. The rise of the villain Bane forces batman out of retirement and bring forth not only hope and stability to otherwise desolated Gotham but also reignited faith in