Anti-Heroes

Robin Van Cleave

ENG 247: Final Project

Due: 05/12/06

Anti-heroes

“Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?” Bonnie Tyler said it best in her 1984 single Holding Out for a Hero. Our current literature seems to have lost its heroes. Bonnie Tyler sang of Hercules; my own endless list of favorites would include Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing, Beowolf, Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, and especially Bastian and Atreyu from The Neverending Story. In place of our idealized flawless heroes, we have created the anti-hero.

FROM HEROES TO ANTI-HEROES

      The Hero-Myth Cycle is a powerful force in storytelling. Used in literature, oral stories, film, and art, this cycle depicts a pattern that all heroes follow in some aspect or another. The hero experiences some call to go on a quest, receives aid from an outside source, struggles with various obstacles along the way (often appearing to fail at some point), fulfills the quest, and returns home a changed man or woman. This cycle is diagrammed out at http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~skalman/writework/herocycle.html.With postmodernism came a distrust of absolute truths. The absolute power of the hero’s inner strength or kind heart or wise mind is key to a the hero-myth cycle. These attributes are the entire reason for all challenges and successes throughout the story. With the absolute truths of the hero’s golden character gone, there is no cycle. Postmodernism created a new type of adventure story with a new main character: the anti-hero.

With his normal-person character flaws and failures at everyday living, the anti-hero is someone with whom readers of the 21^st century can identify. Where heroes appeal to the inner child’s dreams for the future, the anti-hero appeals to the inner pessimist’s reality. The anti-hero often possesses flaws in his or her character with which readers can identify. We are expected to understand, or at least sympathize with the anti-hero’s negative qualities because of his or her redeeming heroic qualities or intentions. Because of this realistic nature of the typical anti-hero, it has become an increasingly popular character in modern literature, and especially the relatively new genre of cyberpunk.

The realistic appeal of the anti-hero is so fervent that some debate whether modern literature contains any old-fashioned heroes at all. The debates usually include several examples reputed by others as non-heroes. At one site, http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/29/10721/1105 a general consensus was reached among the bloggers that a character whom you would not wish your children to grow up to emulate, could not be a hero. Through any debate, however, it is clear that anti-heroes are the new heroes.
TYPES & EXAMPLES

            Wikipedia, (an online encyclopedia) lists eight types of anti-heroes: the vigilante, the developing hero, the drifter, the failure, the flawed everyman, the villain, the noble criminal, and the monster. Some of these tend to blend together, some blur the line between “good guy” and “bad guy,” and all of them give readers and audiences plenty of reasons to dislike them, but are irresistibly lovable.

            The Vigilante.  Many old western films used vigilante characters, just like the image that the name conjures up. They are in many ways closest to the typical hero, in that they have the same goals and intentions. However, unlike their counterparts, these characters will fight dirty. Vigilantes see the end objective and will break any rules necessary to get there. In addition to westerns, comic books are full of vigilante anti-heroes. Daredevil, Spider-Man, and The Punisher all break laws regularly in order to achieve a greater good. The Punisher even utilizes torture, but is nonetheless considered a hero, well – at least an anti-hero. My personal favorite vigilante is from the movie The Princess Bride. Westley knocks out the good guys, kills the bad guys, and kidnaps Princess Buttercup in order to save her from death.

            The Developing Hero. The bad guy turns good when this anti-hero types is used. Some repellent trait is reformed, and the bad guy ends up saving the day, often by turning on his own fellow bad-men. This can be a bit too sweet for mature tastes. Many teenage flicks offer developing heroes for their main character or his / her love-interest, like 10 Things I Hate About You and become predictable after a few moments into the story. Other stories, like Star Wars for example, present frustratingly loveable characters like Hans Solo, whose transformation is much more fun to observe.

            The Drifter. This anti-hero’s outsider status is central to his / her character. Drifters have no one to love, are loved by no one, and often enjoy the resulting solitude. Case’s character in Neuromancer is a classis example of a drifter anti-hero. He dislikes any activities of the “meat,” using the cyberworld to separate himself from other humans. Since cyberpunk often uses such alternate realities in which to set its stories, it is the perfect way to create a bond between the reader and the anti-hero. The reader is unfamiliar with the imaginary worlds of cyberpunk and takes refuge in the drifter’s separation from it. The drifter, therefore, is likely a common anti-hero in cyberpunk literature.

            The Failure. Nothing ever goes the way it was meant to go for a failure anti-hero. This character’s greatest asset is his / her persistence. This is the anti-hero type I have the most difficulty with. I cannot think of many examples, and I do not identify with the examples I do come up with. Wikepedia lists Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman and Don Quixote. I think of Charlie Brown. My apologies to
Devon, but I have not come across a useful explanation of this type of anti-hero. I feel that of all the anti-heroes, this is the least fitting type. Then again, I have never understood Charlie Brown.

            The Flawed Everyman. Probably the most easily understood type of anti-hero, the flawed everyman is someone everybody recognizes. This character is just an ordinary guy, with plenty of unattractive qualities. He or she may not even have the excuse of good intentions for their everyday misbehaviors, but when forced into situations out of the ordinary, makes the right choices and displays a good heart. I could not ignore Wikepedia’s example of Homer Simpson. He is the quintessential flawed everyman. Homer is a fat, loud, rude, and sexist husband and father who treats his family like dirt but would lay down in traffic for him. Another of my favorite characters in this category is Victor from Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke. Victor is a poor excuse for a human being who cons kind strangers into sending him money. However his friend Denny is worse, and so by comparison Victor is colorful and even likeable, if not someone the reader identifies with.

            The Villain. This is the worst of the good guys, and is the anti-hero type furthest from the typical hero. The villain anti-hero does not save the day and does not turn into a better person. The villain can only be called an anti-hero by comparison to his / her fellow characters, whom are so bad, weak, etc. that the main villain is excusable. The scientists who experimentally reform Alex in A Clockwork Orange are evil background figures, the friends he runs with are more vicious, but less intelligent than he, even his own parents reject him. All throughout the story, the reader never finds endearing qualities about Alex, nor are Alex’s hatred and murderous tendencies ever behind him (even once “reformed”). Nonetheless, as a main character, Alex shines splendidly, and readers cannot help but appreciate the pain he endures and the fierce intelligence he applies to each situation that confronts him.

            The Noble Criminal. Adding up the acts of the noble criminal will result in a fine display of law-breaking abilities and deceptions. However, the noble criminal differs from the real bad guys because he steals from the rich to give to the poor. Of course, Robin Hood is the easiest example of a noble criminal. Westley from The Princess Bride could also be called a noble criminal, since many of the acts he commits throughout the movie are under the guise of “The Dread Pirate Roberts.”

            The Monster. The monster struggles against a world that does not accept him. This basic injustice is the reason for his many misdeeds. Interactions with normal humans must be done in disguise or they will result in disaster. Frankenstein’s monster is a very good example of this type of antihero. He is not created with malice in his heart, but his creator rejects him. The world rejects him. He retaliates and seeks revenge, but would give up all his violent ways if someone would accept him and show him love. Many vampire novels create characters that fit into this category. The creation of the vampire itself is often portrayed as unfair to the monster, who then resists its bloody urges for as long as possible and is wracked with guilt and regret once giving in. The concept behind the monster as an anti-hero is that he or she does not want to be monstrous, but by either its nature or its environment, is forced to commit horrendous acts.

BLURRED LINES

            When discussing heroes, anti-heroes, anti-hero types, and villains one thing is clear: nothing is clear. The categories within the anti-hero class overlap. When the main character of the story is a villain, by the above definition, he would be called an anti-hero. However, if the villain is not the main character, he could still be called an anti-hero if he reforms throughout the story, or even if he displays some tiny inner spark of goodness.

The lines between these groups do not always exist; the nicely defined definitions of various anti-hero types are not always so nicely defined. For instance, when deciding what examples to use where, I often found that one character, such as Westley from The Princess Bride, could be viewed as more than one type of anti-hero. As The Dread Pirate Roberts who takes no prisoners, he outwits evil geniuses, terrorizes the kingdom’s brute squad, and humiliates a sniveling conceited Prince Humperdink. He is the noblest of noble criminals. However as Westley, he is madly in love with Buttercup, but roughly kidnaps and interrogates her about her engagement to Prince Humperdink. Westley the vigilante breaks law after law to go after his one true love.

            Derek Vinyard’s character in American History X most easily fits into the developing hero role of the anti-hero class. Yet his character as a whole possesses much darker and influential powers than the description of the developing hero projects. Wikepedia describes this character as having unlikeable qualities. Derek Vinyard’s character before his reformation is much worse than unlikeable; he is sickening. He is a villain in every sense of the word. He organizes crimes that destroy families and humiliate people. He murders a black boy for attempting to break into his car. He holds his sister by the hair and shoves food down her throat. A true villain, right? The problem is that he loves his family (his hatred is prompted by the teachings, and later the death of his father, then after abusing his sister, apologizes to her), and truly believes that his wrongs are for a greater good (ridding the world of criminals like the thief who was attempting to steal his car). From these two viewpoints, he could be seen as a vigilante – simply breaking rules to make the world safer. He could even be seen as a noble criminal – stopping drug dealers from dealing on his street. Of course, the overall picture of Derek Vinyard as a developing hero is clear by the end of the film, but the depth of his character is an excellent example of how easily the lines between types of anti-heroes can be blurred.
CYBERPUNK & ANTI-HEROES

            The niche in which anti-heroes seem most at home is in the genre of cyberpunk. Though some would disagree with this marriage (http://www.ninjaburger.com/~aeon/thesis/thesis12.shtml ). Cyberpunk’s characters are often somehow oppressed in a futuristic earth. Not only do the appealing flaws of the anti-hero give readers something familiar to grasp hold of in the strange world of cyberpunk, but the anti-hero must fight dirty, his jaded view of the world is simply realistic, and the greater good for which the hero always fought is grainy at best. What this all means is that cyberpunk is like Misfit Island for characters like Rick Deckard from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Neuromancer’s Case. They all may be a little flawed, but cyberpunk turns them into heroes, well – anti-heroes at least.

 

Works Cited

“Anti-hero.” Wikepedia, 8 Apr. 2006. Wikepedia. 8 Apr. 2006.        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-heroes.

Baghdad, Bob. “The Rise of the Anti-Hero.” INQ7, 13 Jun 2003. 5 May 2006. http://www.inq7.net/lif/2003/jun/14/lif_4-2.htm.

Dominguez, Diana. “The Hero-Myth Cycle.” Diana Dominguez, 2004. 3 May 2006. http://www.geocities.com/boudicca_1960/hero.html

Oto, Antid. “Where Are the Heroes in Literature?” TPM Café, 29 Aug. 2005. 8 Apr. 2006. http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/29/10721/1105.

Kirtchev, Christian. “Cyberpunk Understood.” The Cyberpunk Project. 5 Dec. 1999. 8 Apr. 2006. http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberpunk_understood.html.

Kalmon, Steven. “The Myth Cyle and the Hero’s Journey.” New

Vista
High School, 3 May 1998, 23 Apr. 2006. http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~skalman/writework/hero.html.

Martin, Paul. “Postmodern Motifs and Ambience in Cyberpunk Films.” The Cyberpunk Project, 10 Nov. 2003. 8 Apr. 2006. http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberpunk_films_postmodern_motifs_and_ambience.html.

“Postmodernism.” Wikepedia, 5 May 2006. Wikepedia. 5 May 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern.

Tyler, Bonnie. Sony Music Entertainment, 1984.