Myths and heroes - impact on the society

The notion I’m going to talk about is Myths and heroes. A myth can have several definitions, first of all, it's an ancient story, often about gods, heroes and magic. It also represents the traditions and popular beliefs that represent the ideals and institutions of society. Sometimes a myth also refers to a rumor or unfounded information. The first definition of the hero is a legendary or mythological character often endowed with great powers or abilities. He is also a person who is admired for his courage, achievements and qualities. It is also the end that defines the main character of a novel for example. Finally, it is also a person who is admired, idolized, a model. What impact do myths and heroes have on a society? We will see, at first, the mith of whitches of salem. Then, we will see the portrait of two historical characters seen in hero.

In class, we can read extrarcts from a play entiled «The Crucible» written in 1952 by Arthur Miller, a famous american playwright. The scene takes place in Salem, in the state of Massachussetts in 1692, a time and place know in history for the witch trials. In this place, Parris is the reverant of Salem. He discovers his daughter inert on a bed ans learns that the rumour of withcraft has spread around the town. As he wants to know more, he pesters his niece with questions and they start having an argument while many people are sitting in the parlour. Obviously, this play is an allegory of Mc Carthysm. In a musthell, the Mc Carthysm is a witch hunt against communists or communist sympathizers in the early 1950’s in America. In all likelihood, Arthur Miller condemns the people who decided to persecute the communists sympathizers. This form of denunciation shows us that myths can influences societies in their way of thinking. Because, witches represent Satann they embody evil like the communist people.

Now, In the second part, I would like to talk of two real heroes who are pretty impressive : Nelson Mandela and Suggar Man. First of all, let me introduce to Nelson Mandela. He was born in 1918 in South Africa. He earned a law degree and then joined the African National Congress (ANC), a black-liberation group and became one of its leaders. He decided to revitalize the ANC and was involved in militant resistance againt apartheid policies of the ruling National Party. After the massacre of unarmed Anfricans by police forces at Shaperville in 1960, Mandela abandonned his non-violent stance. He was jailed for 27 years in differents prisons but was later awarded the Nobel peace prize and died in 2013. He struggled for the freedom of his own people but also for the freedom of white people who were the opressors, which is rather paradoxical but we need to explain his definition of freedom to understand this strange stance. As a matter of fact Nelson mandela believe that we can only be free if we have managed to get rid of all the negative feeling which are inside us