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Deconstructing The Hero

This document discusses the role of heroes and monsters in stories, particularly Western hero tales like Beowulf. It examines how heroes are often portrayed in binary opposition to monsters and how this relates to concepts of otherness. Monsters help define the hero and represent forces like nature, darkness, and the wilderness. The document also analyzes how women are typically marginalized in these tales, seen as symbols rather than characters, and associated with domesticity, beauty, or monstrosity depending on whether they conform to patriarchal norms.

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Luciana Iruretagoyena
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67 views13 pages

Deconstructing The Hero

This document discusses the role of heroes and monsters in stories, particularly Western hero tales like Beowulf. It examines how heroes are often portrayed in binary opposition to monsters and how this relates to concepts of otherness. Monsters help define the hero and represent forces like nature, darkness, and the wilderness. The document also analyzes how women are typically marginalized in these tales, seen as symbols rather than characters, and associated with domesticity, beauty, or monstrosity depending on whether they conform to patriarchal norms.

Uploaded by

Luciana Iruretagoyena
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DECONSTRUCTING THE HERO

LITERARY THEORY AND CHILDREN´S LITERATURE


WHY ARE STORIES IMPORTANT?

o People have always used stories …..


 to render the vast heterogeneity of experience meaningful,
 to explain the behaviour of the physical universe and
 to describe human nature and society.
o They are the most potent means by which perceptions, values and attitudes are
transmitted from one generation to the next.
WESTERN CULTURE…. AND THE SINGLE STORY….

The story of the hero and his quest


What kind of hero?
How can the hero be deconstructed?
How far does Beowulf adhere to the stereotype of the
hero described by Hourigan?
BINARY OPPOSITIONS

Why is the hero story told in terms of binary opposition?.


Consider race, status and gender.
How is otherness explained and how can it be related to
Beowulf?
MONSTERS

 ‘Monsters are indispensable if a hero is to be a hero.’ (Never-ending story)


Dragons : nature vs culture
Human vs nature
Ogres: light vs darkness
Civilization vs wilderness
MONSTERS IN BEOWULF

 What is the role of the monsters in Beowulf?


 Grendel
 Grendel´s mother
 The dragon
VIEWS OF WOMEN

Male culture either


vilifies women as representing darkness
and chaos (for example, to view them as Lilith or the Whore of Babylon)
or
 elevates them as the representatives of a higher and purer
nature,)Virgins and Mothers of God)
WOMEN: MARGINALITY AND INFERIORIZATION

 They are symbols, not characters


 They may have no name
 Women are associated with the domestic sphere
 Thus the public/private dualism is constructed and attached to the
male/female dualism.
 This strengthens the view of patriarchal domination.
HOWEVER,…..

 In some hero tales more powerful maternal and quasi-maternal figures—


strong, autonomous beings —appear at the hero’s times of great need to
assist him in his quest.
 These women do not lend themselves nearly so well to the ideology of
female domesticity
 These goddesses and goddess-like women are survivals from an earlier
pattern of thought: they are descendants of the great mother goddess,
universally worshipped, under many names, in early human history_
Mother Nature, goddesses…
BRIDES

 The beautiful brides of hero tales have compounded women’s psychological


oppression by providing a model of what they ‘ought’ to be like— in appearance,
attitude and behaviour.
 The bride is white, and usually blonde
 Fairness has implied beauty in European literature at least since Homer described
Helen as golden-haired
 In English the word ‘fair’ means both blonde and beautiful.
 The golden-haired bride who is the hero’s reward is usually also slender, delicate
and very young.
MOTHERS IN HERO STORIES

These mothers are invariably good, nurturing, sometimes almost


saintly.
They are the presiding spirits of the domestic sphere.
Their role in the narrative is inscribing the perception that ‘a
woman’s place is in the home’
FEMININE MONSTROSITY

Female monsters:
 They are ‘wild’ and irrational, governed by emotions and physical hungers, whereas
the hero, is ‘so civilized, so intelligent, so self-possessed’.
 These dark and dangerous women are the hero’s opponents and, unlike other females,
they often play a major part in the story for
 they have broken out of the domestic sphere and are loose in the wilderness.
 They naturalize and justify male dominance …
 because they show what iniquity uncontrolled femaleness is capable of!

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