Heroes Weaknesses And The Efficiency Of Their Heroic Images

One of the most intriguing questions about heroism regards the delicate cohexistence between heroes’ private and public spheres. The hero’s ‘valet de chambre’ (the translation of which would be ‘valet of the chamber’), representing those who have access to his most human sides, may be regarded as a methaphore of his private image counterposed to his public one. The purpose of this essay is to emphasize the organic relationship between the presence of heroes’ weaknesses and the efficiency of their heroic images, considering the concept of sacrifice as a binding element between these two apparently anthithecal aspects.

Though heroes do not necessarily need to discard their relatives to behave heroically, their instinct to selflessness mainly

The inner pain of leaving their relatives has to be felt, more or less deeply, so that the the hero’s sufference can be converted into others’ salvation and serenity. In relation to this, it might be appropriate to analyse the etymology of the word ‘’sacrifice’’; derived from the Latin word ‘’sacrificium’’, a compound between the terms ‘sacer’ and ‘facio’, it literally means ‘to make holy’. To the light of its deepest meaning, sacrifice does not imply the arbitrary cession of one’s dearest belongings rather than their transformation into something from which an entire community may benefit. Disregading their personal desires and the attatchment to their immediate family, heroes’ commitment to public needs is pre-eminent, and therefore

In the middle of this still verbal confrontantion, Cuchulainn claims that he would never harm Ferdia for the sake of any ‘’man’’ (Kinsella, page 191); the usage of this term, which may appear as unsignificanlty arbitrary, enlights the ontological ambivalence of the irish hero, who is prevented from acting like a mere man by his congenital duplicity (in fact, his rocambolesque conception also involves the divine intervention). Thus, the hero ‘s allegiance to the community of Ulster does not always matches the man’s priorities. This is ulteriorly proofed by the episode in which he kills his own son, name, in the name of his men’s honour, not whitout inflicting a tremendous grief to himself. Although the role of sons in heroes’s life might seem marginal, probabily because of the arguable role of a biological prolungation for men who are themselves immortal through posterity’s memory, Chucullain’s grieving as a father offers the readers an almost unique chance to sympathise woth him; in fact, the irish hero is more likely to be perceived as a fighting machine, acting mechanically throughout the whole novel with very sparse psychological