Humans are a strong species, from the first days man walked the earth to the present, we have always had heroes. People need heroes to believe in life and to motivate themselves to pursue their goals. Many heroes are told about in stories passed down from generation to generation, like John Henry, or Paul Bunion, others are written in the history books like General Custer, David Crocket, or Abraham Lincoln. Heroes can even be in the movies, John Wayne was a hero in the eyes of our society as was Mark Hamil as Luke Skywalker.
When people read about a person whom they believe is a hero or watch them on TV, they feel good about themselves and feel good about life in general. The Greeks had many heroes in their history, but I see their heroes in a different light than I see our heroes. Their heroes were spoke off in order to give other nations the feeling of being beneath the Greeks. They were also used to teach children that a true Greek is well educated, handsome and a worrier. The stories made the Greeks feel superior to everyone else and they believed they had a strong and meaningful heritage.
The heroes of our society and history are different, they were not always well educated, not handsome and at the time of their actions were sometimes rebelled on by society. Some of the stories we tell our children are filled with the perfect man or woman like the Greek heroes, but everyone know they are made up to prove a point. The Greeks believed their stories as history even as adults. The heroes of our nation that we learn of today are spoke of in order to teach us of our heritage and to show us that anyone can do anything if they want or feel morally obligated to do. The heroes of Greece did heroic feats because they wanted the glory that came with it, except for maybe the heroes of the Trojan war, they fought because of their vow to protect Helen. The heroes of the United States pursued their feats mainly because of moral beliefs, they felt it was the right thing to do even when other stood by the wayside and watched.
Such physical allegories were first used in the fifth century B.C to explain Greek mythology, because; "with the growth of philosophic rationalism in Greece [], the traditional myths [with its humanlike, and sometimes immoral gods] came under attack. [] Physical allegory assumes that the myths were invented to account for natural phenomena," (Isabel Rivers, 21). ...
