Myths and heroes: what is truly a self made man or woman?

Definition :

A myth is a story which regroups popular beliefs and conceptions about a character or a real person. It can be true, but most of the time there is part of doubt in it. They require heroes, the main characters, who are idealised for their incredible values and acts, representing a famous model. Some of them ascended from rags to riches and are considered as self made men/women.

But what is truly a self made man or woman?

I] The driving force of the american dream

The american dream is the idea that any person living in the USA, through his work, courage and determination, can become successful. This ideal is based on the story of many famous successful men who managed to build themselves a life. It can be related to the idea of self-made man, since the person got himself to a good situation without relying on his familial situation.

We studied the document " The Guardian's Film blog " which describes the premiere " Never Say never ". This film illustrates the life of the famous canadian singer, and whose life is equivalent to the one of a self made man. Indeed, born from a teenage mum and raised by his grandparents after his dad left him, he learned by his own to play music and only knew success because his mother posted on YouTube videos of him. He is now one of the most famous person on Earth, and perfectly illustrates the american dream if we consider that his skills got discovered by american agents.

This american dream has been powered up with a lot of movies which rely on the success of a character. We can take the exemple of " The Great Gatsby ", a movie produced by Baz Luhrman and based on a book. In this movie, we discover the story of Gatsby, a mysterious self made man living in New York during the early 20s. This character has humble origines and got into the high society thanks to his mentor, without inheriting from his wealth. He then built himself a life based on the lie of his origines, and became a mysterious wealthy man which totally personifies the American Dream.

II] The values of a hero

A self made man also embodies universal values as determination and empathy, that he acquired through his living. Despite the fact he enriched himself, he doesn't forget where he comes from, and tries to make the world a better place with his acts.

With the example of Gatsby, during the movie the character only wants to meet again his love, and goes as far as to cover an accident, getting blamed for a death he didn't make while a driving session with her love, and later getting killed because of it.

A self-made man requires a true kindness towards the others, which can be directly linked to his wealth, as for the Prince of Peace, of the document The 42nd Parallel. We learn the story of A. Carnegie, a Scottish-American industrialist and entrepreneur who, besides making from rags to riches as an immigrant to the USA, also donated most of his money to build libraries, schools and institutions to promote universal peace.

The self-made man can be considered as a a real hero, he built his life out of his own acts and choices, and participated into making the world a better place.

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