Heroes and Anti-Heroes

Introduction to a few of the basic hero patterns

Otto Rank (following Freud)

Rank finds heroism in the first part of life. This is the phase of leaving one’s parents, striking out into the world for the first time, and establishing an independent identity. Independence does not, however, equate to simple rejection of parents and the whole past from which the Rankian hero emerges. Independence requires self-sufficiency, freedom from dependence upon one’s origin, not merely a rejection of that origin (in fact, often a reclamation of that origin). Ultimately, for Rank, what the hero seeks is to replace or take the position of one’s father. This seems to place Rank’s hero squarely in the position of Freud’s Oedipus, a figure who unwittingly kills his own father, replacing that father as the husband of the woman who turns out to be the hero’s own mother. Rank outlines a clear pattern below:

The rank and honors the Rankian hero all too often achieves, however, are the rank and honors of the parental generation that the hero has now displaced and destroyed.

Jung finds heroism primarily, but not exclusively, in the second half of life. He does acknowledge the necessity of separation from parents and the forging of an independent, adult identity, but this is only the beginning for Jung. What is done after the establishment of independence (physical, financial, spiritual, psychological) is far more important for Jung than is the process of becoming independent.

For Jung, the ultimate goal, and therefore the ultimate heroism, is the development of full and complete consciousness. An individual’s relationship to the outside world must be balanced by an awareness of an inner reality, what Jung refers to as the unconscious. This is the process of individuation, the attempt to create a state of wholeness out of a state of fragmentation, or in more Jungian terms, an integration of the conscious personality—the "ego"—with the larger unconscious:

Campbell’s most famous work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, locates heroism almost exclusively in the second half of life. Where Rank’s hero returns to confront his mother and father, Campbell’s departs from mother and father, encountering male and female figures (often gods) along the way that seek to aid or prevent the hero from accomplishing his goal.

Campbell’s "Hero’s Journey" paradigm can be boiled down in the following manner:

Stage I: Separation/Departure

1. The Call to Adventure—"the signs of the vocation of the hero"
2. Refusal of the Call—"the folly of the flight from the god
3. Supernatural Aid—"unsuspected assistance" often from a superhuman source
4. The Crossing of the First Threshold—the point of no return
5. The Belly of the Whale—"the passage into he realm of night," or underworld

Stage II: Trials and Victories of Initiation

1. The Road of Trials—"the dangerous aspect of the gods"
2. The Meeting with the Goddess—"the bliss of infancy regained"
3. Woman as the Temptress—"The realization and agony of Oedipus"
4. Atonement with the Father—or identification with a replacement father figure
5. Apotheosis—literally, a joining with divinity
6. The Ultimate Boon—something invaluable brought back to the everyday world

Stage III: Return and Reintegration with Society

1. Refusal of the Return—"the world denied"
2. The Magic Flight—"the escape of Prometheus"
3. Rescue from Without—assistance in returning to the everyday world
4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold—"the return to the world of common day"
5. Master of the Two Worlds—freedom to pass back and forth between two worlds
6. Freedom to Live—"the nature and function of the ultimate boon"

"The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero's sexual union with the goddess mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again—if the powers have remained unfriendly to him his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir)." (Campbell 245-46)