From The Odyssey to Star Wars, the idea of a hero is one that stays consistent no matter the author, story or time. The works in question all have the presence of a hero in common, and just as important, their authors were all people. That significance is not that other stories without heroes may have been written by aliens, but rather that the hero is something that humans seem to naturally conjure up when stories are told. The hero seen in Luke Skywalker or Odysseus doesn’t change, there’s a very similar process and set of attributes in each character. The hero is someone who rises above what is expected of human ability through some extraordinary power, strength or quality otherwise unique to the character. Drawing on Joseph Campbell to address the commonality of all works, all of the heroes in the pieces in question, and in a majority of hero based works through the history of literature, go through what Campbell referred to as “The Hero Cycle.” The most important part of the heroes adventure and the most common theme is what he calls the “transition of consciousness.” A process that primarily involves the hero be taken out of their element, where perhaps their superhuman abilities are now moot, where they are generally uncomfortable and hurled into the unknown. From this they gain new perspective from the world they dared not venture into before and find a new “consciousness” from the experience which they otherwise would never have had.
From the technical sense that Campbell lays out, the characters in the pieces in question can be considered heroes. However modern society has warped the meaning and definition to put more significance on certain aspects of heroism. For example, sacrifice, especially in a nationalistic sense, dictates a large part of what modern society here in America considers heroism. What better example of a modern hero than the firefighter or the soldier, someone who has put their well being at risk, or perhaps gave the ultimate sacrifice to a cause greater than themselves. Sacrifice, especially in an altruistic sense, lends itself to be implicitly associated by modern society as heroism. Most importantly, that sacrifice in the name of that cause, especially the “ultimate sacrifice,” what Lincoln called the “last full measure of devotion,” is considered by many as of the utmost valor and the most heroic of any act. I think however, the general conduct of a hero can be applicable in more than one sense.
Joseph Campbell’s concept of a shift in “consciousness” after undergoing some kind of journey is particularly representative of the idea that the important piece of heroic action in the adventure is the way in which the unknown is faced and ultimately dealt with. The hero displays an "archetypical" model for learning from the discomfort of life. The heroes ability to face the unknown is what is looked so highly upon by those who admire them. The manner in which a hero learns from their journey is a process in finding individual truth outside of his or her own element, and a process that authors of heroic myths have been preaching to humanity since ancient Mesopotamia. It is a process meant to be looked at with admiration, and responded to by readers with emulation. Brecht’s quote then, “Unhappy is the land that needs heroes,” reflects the idea that a hero is a role model. That he or she is an icon in which society, an unhappy one in Brecht’s view, looks upon for guidance to face things more bravely than they would have before and for inspiration to go beyond their element. Brecht’s “happy” society would not need such aesthetic and glamorous motivation to perform the necessary task of maturing and facing the unknown in life.
The exclusion of women from most popular heroic works is unfortunately not surprising by any means. Misogyny in literature is well chronicled and is not different when talking about works about heroes. In my view, however, there is nothing that would logically stop a woman from achieving any of the parts of the hero cycle. It’s absurd to think that a female could not undergo the psychological shifts that a hero undergoes which define the heroic novel in an abstract sense. Where women get left out of the picture in the heroic canon of literature is when the “warrior” is the central hero. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to think that a majority of heroic stories involve some sort of battle or feat of physical strength or test. The role of physical conqueror is not the traditional role of women in society, especially according to the norms of the previous centuries of written works. Hopefully, modern society will either overcome this stigma, or create a greater wealth of heroic works in which the adventure calls for a great sense of psychological “hurdling”, if that's what it will take to create more diversity in the literary body of heroic works.
