A Recipe For Heroes

Have you ever wondered if the extraordinary people we see in books and movies are really that extraordinary? Could these characters truly be more than just an ordinary person? Are we, as real people and not figments of literature, capable of making the same changes we see them make? The answer can simply be a yes. If that is all it takes to sate your curiosity you can stop reading now. If you want to learn how heroism is part of our nature, then I suggest you continue on. I'll be attempting to determine what are the true makings of a hero. By the end you might even discover that we can all be heroes as well.

So how might we define a hero? Well, if we were to google the definition of the word, we'll find that a hero is a term for a submarine sandwich. As delicious as that might be, it doesn't help much. The next one tells us that a hero is “the principal character of a play or story”. A little warmer, but a little too broad for our terms here. Dictionary.com gives us our answer. They define a hero as “a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.“

Now that we know what a hero is considered etymologically, how does this apply to ourselves or the people we meet every day? Mark Twain provides an option for heroes in his 1901 essay The United States of Lyncherdom. “Why does it lift no hand or voice in protest? Only because it would be unpopular to do it, I think; each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval – a thing which, to the general run of the race, is more dreaded than wounds and death.” This would seem to suggest that one might be considered heroic by showing he has no fear of the opinions of others. The simple act of standing to face evil or injustice seems to be a heroic quality. A noble act that would show the more pusillanimous of the herd behavior that should be emulated.

Gaines expands upon this concept in A Lesson before Dying. Using the backdrop of post WWII racism in a small town, Gaines is able to examine what might happen if a man is presented with hard choices. His character Grant Wiggins, a black schoolteacher, wishes to move away from the tiny, oppressive quarter to be allowed a modicum of freedom to choose how his life continues. His choice is consistently removed from him by family members (Gaines 13), the children he teaches (Gaines 165), and even his paramour (Gaines 30). However, when it comes down to making a choice, he always makes the choice that would be good for someone else or for their community as a whole. He ignores his own needs and wants, sometimes reluctantly, in order to facilitate change. He eventually realizes that he can make little changes that impact the future. He may not consider himself a hero, but he fits both the modern dictionary definition as well as Mark Twains summation in that he stands up. He stands up, reluctantly sometimes, but he still stands up for others because he feels obligated or to right an injustice.

I think this shows us that there are no true heroes. That our senses only allow us to see a small portion of a person that we idolize. This person that has been deemed a paragon has their own struggle and their own selfish desires. They are not fearless warriors of righteousness. They are just people like you or I who have been given the opportunity to be heroic. The simple conclusion, that goes with our simple answer, is that we need only be excellent to each other in order to be heroes.

Works Cited
Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson before Dying. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Twain, Mark. "The United States of Lyncherdom." The United States of Lyncherdom. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 July 2014.