THE MYTH OF THE HERO BEETWEN PAST AND FUTURE
- Have you ever seen a Hero without a tragic destiny? -

by Alfredo Anania
(passages)

… Discourse about the heroes of Western thought, still so deeply influenced by classic culture, usually turns toward the Greek models: above all Hercules; and less towards Theseus and Perseus. Consciously or unconsciously, Ulysses is always ever-present. Each heroic personage symbolizes some archetype aspects of the individual being and, furthermore, a phase of human progress, together with the development of customs, laws, rituals and principles, which at the time characterized it. The social value of the "book of the Heroes" is immediately evident when the mythical narration represents a paradigmatic and exemplary model. It establishes the rules and affirms the main principles; indicates the individual and collective risks resulting from the violation of tradition; and signals the well-known pains, the sacrifices and the expiations connected to transgression. At the same time, the myth of the Hero represents a stimulus for the research, the struggle, the conquest, the experimentation, the fatigue, the courage, the sacrifice and the hybris. If the social value of the myth of the hero is evident, more hidden and inexhaustibly appear its "economic value" (clearly here it is referring to a psychic economy). The archetype of the Hero, for its symbolic "valence", lends itself to a dynamic and powerful movement of identifications. When the heroic aspects are not found in the personality of the individual or when a community lacks heroic figures, the archetype, existing in the collective unconscious, acts as something which restores the psyche internally and allows the heroic spirit to remain alive. It is in this way able to revive itself when the period of new-incubation has ceased …

… The French psychoanalyst introduces Hercules, who seems to be stripped of that function "warlike strength-vigour" which had animated the myth of the hero, and, so, he could appear in a new appearance if he didn't remind us of the Buddha myth and the Indian mythology from which the prominence of the inner research, the interruption of the superficial action are given off in favour of a self-knowledge which is more and more intense. But would these interpretations and connections be possible without Nietzsche? …

… Can we say that Nietzsche's work is finished? …

… "Who are we really?" this is the grand question that Nietzsche asks himself and human beings. But immediately he poses yet another question: "Where is the self-swindle?". And, at the end, the enigma-challenge for human beings: "How does one become what one is?". Nietzsche frightens us because he is shattering and for his mysterious, brief and very personal way of reasoning to propose himself you can give several interpretations. "How does one become what one is?"…

 
 

 

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