Essay on Exploring Why We Enjoy the Anti-Hero

On June 28, 1972, James Richardson awaiting the subway train which would take him to work. He was stopped and ordered to “put up your hands, and get against the wall”. These directions were given by an off duty Transit Authority patrolman named John Skagen. Skagen’s actions seem unprovoked and unnecessary. After a short tussle the two men exchanged shots and Richardson fled the scene on foot. Two other officers that were on the main street above the subway station were made aware of what was transpiring below and rushed to the scene. As they approached the entrance of the station, Richardson who was fleeing the scene ran directly into one of the

We often believe that the protagonist of a story is a hero and possesses heroic qualities such as moral goodness, courage and selflessness. However, this is not true for every story. A story can have a protagonist who is an anti-hero: someone who lacks the traditional qualities of a hero. Anti-heroes are defined in three ways: The Satanic anti-hero, a character who seeks an evil goal through evil means, the Promethean anti-hero, someone who seeks a worthy goal but by unethical means, and the Byronic anti-hero, a character who has undefined goals and are to be achieved through questionable means, in which this character is often unpredictable mysterious, moody, and self-destructive. Both Macbeth from William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth and Pink from the film, Pink Floyd – The Wall, are both anti-heroes. More specifically, Macbeth is classified as a satanic anti-hero who seeks the goal to become king and Pink is a Byronic anti-hero, who has no clear goal other than to escape the ‘wall’ he is trapped in. Some similarities these two characters share are that they are both privileged (with Macbeth being a well-praised warrior and Pink being a famous musician), are supported by corrupting influences and rationalize their worse deeds as needing to preserve their own safety. Although Macbeth and Pink share similar characteristics, I would assert, because of Pink’s childhood traumas, that Pink deserves more sympathy than Macbeth.

Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman—what do all these characters have in common? They are all products of the human aspiration to be saved. The word hero is passed around too much these days. A hero is not a football player that scores the game-winning touchdown or the goaltender who saves his team from a loss. A hero is usually an ordinary person that did extraordinary things. A true hero is really never a hero at all; at least not in their own mind. However, there are various cases today in which we see the exact opposites of these characters, the anti-heroes. The anti-hero is one who cannot be classified as a hero, for that said character lacks natural heroic qualities. However, the anti-hero cannot be described as a villain either.

A hero is someone admired for their courage, achievements, and/or idealized qualities, however; a movie can also portray an anti-hero. An anti-hero is a central character in which lacks conventional heroic characteristics. In every movie, book, or in reality every hero has their ups and downs. Many people undergo many hardships to become a hero. There are many stages a hero has to overcome such as: Separation, Initiation, and Return.

There are many novels wherein the main character in an anti-hero. Anti-heroes are the twisted versions of wholesome protagonists; protagonists have pure ideals and motives, while an anti-hero’s end motives usually justify the morally grey means that he or she achieved them by. The readers of such novels usually root for the seemingly villainous protagonist, this “anti-hero”. The anti-heros in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood are Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. These two men are reported to be cold blooded killers in this nonfiction novel, and yet many readers root for these anti-heroes, thanks to Capote’s retelling of events. Truman Capote attempts to humanizes these killers by sharing their pasts with the reader, which trigger sympathy or hatred, depending on how Capote portrays them

The underlying themes or principles of good and evil are fed to us at young ages, through stories,other means of media, or even our parents. Each and every one of us has a role model we look up to or admire as the hero in our metaphorical storybook of our life. This person embodies who we want to become later in life or even at that particular moment in our lives. These idols we place on a pedestal, change throughout life, and these changes in who we look up to form our personalities and the way we perceive life. The person I currently look up to as a hero is Chris Ulmer, due to his passion, humility and his ability to be open minded.

In the reading, “Why We Love TV’s Anti-heroes” by Stephen Garrett, he points out that anti-heroes are becoming more popular than the traditional hero. Garrett states, “the word hero is abused in the news, the sports reports, and even in conversation” (318). For example tabloids recognize someone who battles a drug addiction and overcomes it or a substitute kicker for the football game kick the winning field goal (318). You see he argues that traditional heroes are “boring” and that there are no longer any more real heroes (318-321). Anti-heroes are characters or people who are just evil but still get the viewers to like

Anti-heroes do not solely exist in the fictional world. There are people in the real world, everyday who fit the anti-hero description. They are… the Mob. In ancient times loyalty was purest form of respect. It was a way of life. One was loyal to his or her family, govern, king, and God. Hand in hand with loyalty, comes the right to revenge. The Mob is one of the few “societies” that has reserved that tradition. For example: when a family member is assassinated, it is not only the right, but also the duty of the surviving family to avenge that death. This loyalty to one’s own, coupled with the fierce determination to protect them, are incredibly heroic qualities. Organized crime families are oohed and ahhed by the press and pop culture, and have their own fans. While these people are not ideal role models, they possess heroic qualities worthy of aspiration.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground (1864/2008) comes across as a diary penned by a self-described “spiteful” and “unattractive” anonymous narrator (p. 7). The narrator’s own self-loathing characterized by self-alienation is so obvious, that he is often referred to by critics as the Underground Man (Frank 1961, p. 1). Yet this Underground Man is the central character of Dostoyevsky’s novel and represents a subversion of the typical courageous hero. In this regard, the Underground man is an anti-hero, since as a protagonist he not only challenges the typical literary version of a hero, but also challenges conventional thinking (Brombert 1999, p. 1).

Life is often interpreted by many as having meaning or purpose. For people who are like Meursault, the anti-hero protagonist of Albert Camus' The Stranger, written in 1942, the world is completely without either. Camus' story explores the world through the eyes of Meursault, who is quite literally a stranger to society in his indifference to meaning, values, and morals. In this novel, this protagonist lives on through life with this indifference, and is prosecuted and sentenced to die for it. Through Meursault and his ventures in The Stranger, Camus expresses to the reader the idea that the world is fundamentally absurd, but that people will react to absurdity by attaching meaning to it in vain, despite the fact that the world, like

The universe is composed of both good and evil beings. The good humans are always nice and thoughtful of other people. The evil characters, on the other hand, keep on hurting and harming their fellows. In most cases, people do not like associating with evil characters. These people are avoided, and they live a lonely life without friends. The reason is that good and evil will always be two parallel elements that will never meet. In a typical and real-world setting, good and evil characters are determined by their actions. For instance, an evil person could set a trap for luring their closest friend into danger. Conversely, in the fictional world, evil characters are differentiated from the good ones by giving them terrifying and monstrous images. The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker is one book that uses vampires to portray evil. Some people find pleasure in doing good while others find joy in doing evil to others. But everyone is entitled to choosing their paths and personalities. The question is, between good and evil, what is the noblest thing to emulate? The Dracula novel gives a series of events that answers the question. Evil will never surpass goodness, and neither will the two ever cross lines; instead, goodness will always win the battle.

Within my group, many ideas were shared. Our first idea for our pre-existing piece was sparked from a concept from the movie ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ in which a villain is the protagonist, who learns to accept who he is by the conclusion of the story. This inspired our idea of a ‘Villain support group’ to be the main concept of our story. This then developed into a ‘Side character support group’, and the discussion of which characters would be included in either side. Ultimately, this was as far as this idea got and was scrapped when a future, more relevant idea came along. I felt as though this idea would be great for a short scene in the show, but was not elaborate enough to create a 10-20

Unlike heroes, villains are remembered for their loss. They are remembered for their apparent strength and dominance, covering overpowering weakness found within. Villains fight for what is material, even if the material is really thin, and they are remembered for their misplaced priority of quantity over quality.

Who is a hero? How does the definition of a hero change over time? The Epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps the “longest and greatest literary composition written in cuneiform Akkadian” (Dalley 39) and told to an audience, while The Odyssey, and Oedipus the King came many centuries later. However, they all have a hero that represents the values of the society at the time. This paper is going to compare and contrast the ideal of the hero from ancient Mesopotamia in Gilgamesh in approximately 2000 BC, The Odyssey, from the close of the 8th century BC focusing on Odysseus’ long journey home to Ithaca, and Oedipus the King written in about 430 BC and telling the story of the King, Oedipus who fulfills a prophecy.

The original hero archetype greatly contrasts the modern anti-hero archetype. A hero is someone who displays little to no flaws and is widely liked by the majority. This character presents its storyline with exceptional traits. The anti-hero archetype is completely opposite of the hero archetype. “Unlike the traditional hero who is morally upright and steadfast, the anti-hero usually has a flawed moral character” (Michael). Modern anti-heroes lack in grace, power, and social success (Neimneh). They deal with issues and insecurities such as alcoholism and infidelity (Michael). Anti-heroes make unpleasant moral compromises, in contrast to the desired, in order to reach something. They want to create order where it is impossible and put the protagonist to ‘justice’. Traditional hero characters often succeed when trying to complete their quests, which contrasts the extremely grimm success rate of anti-hero victory. Anti-heroes also do not let their inner thoughts influence their actions while original or traditional heroes seek self-definition (Teleky). Traditional hero characters often succeed when trying to complete their quests, which contrasts the extremely grimm success rate of anti-hero victory. The faultless ways of the hero archetype sets it apart from people in society, making it extremely unrelatable to the mass amount of humans today, allowing the anti-hero archetype to prevail through.