Characters That Define a Mythological Hero - Essay Example

With the many millions of people in the world today, a very minute percentage has been known to be of mythical heroes that we celebrate. It is a fraction that constitutes of individuals that you can even mention one by one, but have you ever tried to think of how these heroes do come to existence. Multiple of scholars had previously conducted many kinds of research, but the story of one James Dean can help us in grasping some understanding of the same (Dean and Bowen 1994, pp.392-418).

To just give a brief description of the so called James, we get to learn that he was an orphan after his mother died at his tender age which forced his upbringing from an uncle. With a close relation to other mythical heroes, we get a similar history in their upbringing. With this findings, a mythical hero is always abducted from his parents or separated from them in one way or another. It is the kind of upbringing that forces him to forge for his destiny in a struggle against the world (Dalton 2001. pp.7).

To identify a mystical hero, one can as well base back to his educational background and the kind of labor they have been undertaking. For instance, dean never completed his university education where he went ahead to work as an icebreaker on a refrigeration truck. He was also known to be an all-around person as apart from this single task, he also engaged in other labors. With this case, it is through these diverse skills that he gets to learn and prove his aptitudes as well as express their powers towards the richest.

According to Rimbaud, the wanderer (Macklin1993, Vol. 16) we get to learn that heroes die young. They will always perform their heroic confrontations and desires at their youthful age after which they seize. Within this period they will always try to act in a more typical way. For instance, with James Dean, his genic always corresponded a dominant physiognomic type. He was characterized by blond hair and regular features that translate to an admirable double nature of adolescent face which hesitates between childhood melancholy and the mask of an adult.

Despite the production of the two films, James also goes ahead to express to us through his life the need for adolescent individuality. Through the film, he tries to insist and refuse to accept the norms of soul killing and specialized life that lies ahead of them. According to him, the youths should live to the demand for a total life, quest for absolutism(Lightfoot,1986. pp.9-28) He continues to address this by stating that our current youths can only discover themselves through reasons such as limited violence, sadism, hysteria, pessimism, filth, and cruelty. With this case, they should try to live more infinitely with simplicity with some modest of feeling, continual fantasy life, more purity alongside keeping themselves off from everyday mortality. He also addresses the adolescents love of tests and trials, pride and intoxication that he states we should refrain from.

With his heroism, (Reason, 2008) James Dean was known to live a double life that had both an on and off screen. His way of addressing his needs talks all about this as it was in a revolt and with a single impulse. The clarity about these characteristics is well brought out through his American films East of Eden and Rebel without cause. With the two films, he tries to mask parent childhood conflicts where in the East of Eden he presents an uncomprehending father with a fallen mother while in the rebel without the case, comes an uncomprehending mother with a fallen father. With the films being counterattacks to one another, their theme has been the adolescent combat against the father.

On another case from the death of James (Langford, 1977 p.37), we get to learn that no one has ever believed the death of a superhero or Superman. Most believe that the lives of these people have been entirely mortal. For instance, from the death of James which resulted from an accident, most people till date believe that he survived the accident. They tend to believe that there would probably be a hitchhiker who was killed while James was disfigured, unrecognizable unconscious and probably lies somewhere in a hospital.

To give a better understanding of the above information regarding his death, most people even today send letters every week. They had the belief that Jimmy is still in existence somewhere in no mans land somewhere between life and death. They believe that as a hero, he is still in their presence despite being invisible. It is through this that we get to learn that spiritualism revives the primitive notion according to which the dead, who are corporeal specters are endowed with invisibility and ubiquity thus helping them to live among the living. A case also appeared of a response to one of the ladies who had written a letter to him asking him to rise. Through the response, it James was figured insisting that he was not dead and those that believed his existence was correct. Death, in this case, was regarded to have recovered the forgotten prestige of the stars of the great epoch which is nearer gods than mortals.

References

Dalton, D., 2001. James Dean: the mutant king: a biography. Chicago Review Press.pp.7

Dean, J.W. and Bowen, D.E., 1994. Management theory and total quality: improving research and practice through theory development. Academy of management review, 19(3), pp.392-418.

Langford, G., 1977. Death of James Dean. Quadrant, 21(7), p.37.

Lightfoot, S.L., 1986. On goodness in schools: Themes of empowerment. Peabody Journal of Education, 63(3), pp.9-28.

Macklin, G., 1993. A Study of Theatrical Vision in Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations [Studies in French Literature 16] (Vol. 16). Edwin Mellen Press.

Reason, J.T., 2008. The human contribution: unsafe acts, accidents and heroic recoveries. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.