Hero As a Model of Essay

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Revenge, too, is prominent in all of these works: Beowulf must destroy the monster our of revenge for the havoc on the Kingdom; the Greeks must avenge the kidnapping of Helen and the slights against their lands; the Knight, the Miller and the Wife of Bath all must seek revenge for perceived wrongs. Poems like Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, and the Iliad and Odyssey, especially as oral tradition, frame the journey of the hero through trials and tribulations to, eventually success. The saving of society, though, is often met with grave personal sacrifice, sometimes of tangible wealth, more often of loved ones, or, in the case of Beowulf, the ultimate sacrifice -- giving up one's own life in the service of society.

Yet in each of the tales there is at least one, and frankly many more, characters that have a fatal personality flaw that causes not only consternation, but increases the drama for the reader and gives the impression that the hero does not always succeed.

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These flaws are often personality traits shared by many humans: greed, avarice and pride (Achilles, Odysseus, Priam, Agamemnon); arrogance and lust (Beowulf); and even exaggerations of being too prideful and good vs. slovenly and judgmental for the Knight, Squire, Monk, and Plowman in Chaucer.

However, true to the archetype, redemption is found! The elaborate quest becomes the journey, the hero -- at least according to Joseph Campbell, has 1,000 faces, and humans have an template with which to hold their psycho-social world together intact and optimistic that right will triumph; that Troy will fall, the Grendel will die, that Medusa will no longer kill, and that justice (The Wife's Tale or the Miller's Tale) will be served and all will be well. In fact, modern psychologist Carl Jung takes this even further noting that modern humans need these archetypes in order to organize themselves within the world -- whether imagined or real (Cambpell)

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