EDIT: If you are going to read this post, please read my last blog post first. Please. Many of the issues raised by people in the comments are addressed in that blog post. Also it is, in my opinion, much more interesting and well put together than this one.
Joseph Campbell believes that to lead the most fulfilling and satisfying life possible, we need to lead our own Hero’s Journey. And yes, we all can see some aspects of the Hero’s Journey in ourselves, though not nearly as epic as those that we have read about. But there is a major facet of being a hero that Joseph Campbell missed. Admittedly, I have not read much of his works, and it is possible that he discusses and ultimately disproves the point that I am trying to make. That is a chance I am willing to take. What I believe that Joseph Campbell missed is the social aspect of Heroes: in real life, heroes are created by the society around them.
Joseph Campbell believes that to lead the most fulfilling and satisfying life possible, we need to lead our own Hero’s Journey. And yes, we all can see some aspects of the Hero’s Journey in ourselves, though not nearly as epic as those that we have read about. But there is a major facet of being a hero that Joseph Campbell missed. Admittedly, I have not read much of his works, and it is possible that he discusses and ultimately disproves the point that I am trying to make. That is a chance I am willing to take. What I believe that Joseph Campbell missed is the social aspect of Heroes: in real life, heroes are created by the society around them.
In
my last blog post, I argued that a to be a hero requires a witness. In a
comment on that blog post Arielle said a great example: “Say there is a hero
who just saved the entire planet from an alien invasion at the edge of our
galaxy, all by himself [...] but it's so far away that no one on earth knows
about it.” Is he a hero? Well, it is more complicated than it seems. If we are
talking about that man’s story, then he is a hero to us. But if really nobody
knew about his story, then he could not be a hero. Again, read my last blog post if you want to hear the reasoning that led me to make this conclusion. I
argue that someone cannot become a hero if no one says that they are. Without
the public eye, we may only be heroic, but are not yet heroes.
As
room progresses, I believe that there will be more discussion regarding the media.
At least, the first few lines of ‘After’ hinted at that when they started
talking about the ‘vultures.’ When we read room, we know that Jack is a hero
because we know what he has done. However, at this point in the novel, by which
I mean right after the great escape, very few people in Jack’s world know what
he has done. I think that the media will make Jack into a hero. Lets see where
it goes.
I would argue that Jack is a hero regardless of if the media or the larger world knows about what he did because Ma knows that he saved her and he knows that he saved them and it's enough to just be a hero for one person. The world doesn't have to know that you saved a life so long as the life was saved. And Jack doesn't need to be a hero to the world if Ma knows how important Jack was.
ReplyDeleteI think that your point about a hero needing to have a witness makes a lot of sense, in essence it is comparable to the "if a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a sound" conundrum. Even if someone acts very heroically and triumphs over evil or accomplishes some great feat, they will likely not be made into a hero, or rather, treated like a hero unless people are around to witness it. This is another reason why the first-person narration of Jack is so valuable in Room, as we can observe just how much adversity Jack must overcome--from his perspective considering that he has never been outside before.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. You make a very meta argument, that a hero is (by definition) venerated. Obviously, in order to be venerated you have to have an audience of impress-able people. But I think people use the word 'heroic' to mean different things. Sometimes it's synonymous with "self-sacrificing", sometimes it's synonymous with "strong" (or in place of some other virtue/adjective) -- but you define it strictly as "impressive", which makes sense as far as I'm concerned. I think Campbell does account for society shaping the hero in some ways though, if you read into his symbolism. Mentor, for example, could represent different aspects of a hero's society. Supernatural aid, as we've established with Jack, doesn't have to be objectively supernatural in nature, but just unfamiliar to the point of seeming unreal to the hero him/herself, so supernatural aid could also hypothetically be influence of an unfamiliar society on the hero. Sorry, I know this is disjointed...
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to Mehul, I was thinking of the saying "if a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a sound" as I read your post. I think there is some truth to your argument. If the character is not recognized by outsiders as a hero, they cannot truly be considered a hero. However, I believe that any character in a novel or movie can be considered a hero. We as readers/viewers fulfill the role of witnesses regardless of whether there are witnesses in the plot.
ReplyDeleteI really like the point that you are making in the blog post, but I also agree with Maya. In the case of Room, Jack is automatically a hero because Ma knows what he did to save her. I think that even if nobody was there to witness the heroic acts, they would still be heroic anyways, because the readers act as the audience.
ReplyDeleteNot only are very few people able to witness his heroic actions, but what makes someone a hero is "a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities" (from google definition). While we as the reader admire and view Jack as a hero, there is no audience in the actual context of the book and is I start to think of what Mehul said of the tree in the forest. The ways we view Jack as a hero is from an outward point of view and so it is hard to say for certain that Jack is hero in the novel itself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what a lot of people in the previous comments have been saying: Jack has always been a hero because of what he does for Ma. For Jack, his whole world is Room, so being seen as a hero to the one other person in his world is really a 100% success rate. Furthermore, I think that Ma is a hero without recognition from a society, as she has been Jack's hero since he was born and constantly making sure he is safe.
ReplyDeleteIm not entirely sure about the idea that a hero has to have an audience to be a hero. The "everyday hero" who helps old people cross the street and stuff doesn't have millions of people watching them on TV is still doing legitimate good for people in the world and is thus still a hero.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating discussion, and will become even moreso once we see the media at work in the second half of _Room_. Jack and Ma, at this point, are the only ones who know anything about their story, apart from Nick, and we don't care what he thinks. It's analogous to Odysseus on Calypso's island--he's presumed dead, no one knows where he is, and no one has (yet) heard of all his heroic deeds during the wanderings. Arguably, Odysseus becomes a hero once he starts telling his own tales to the Phaeacians. At this point in _Room_, Jack is a hero, to Ma--who writes him into a heroic narrative and gives him courage by getting him to see himself as central to a heroic narrative. Ma is the perceiver, and she's the most important perceiver in Jack's life at this point. I'd also argue that *we* are the perceivers--that Jack, by narrating his own story, is able to get us to see him as a hero by aligning us so closely with his experience. We bear witness to his heroic act because we watch closely as he goes through all these ordeals.
ReplyDelete