Mythes Et héros

What's an hero?

I) The controversial example of Jalil

II) The example of Vincent

My question is what is a hero? What caracteristics does he have?

The notion of hero or anti hero is very difficult to define. If usually in cartoons or comics for example a hero is rather characterized by its phsical capabilities, according to me that's mental and heart capacities which determine a hero. We'll speak about thecontroversial ewample of Jalil in “A Thousand Splendids Suns” at first then we'll study Vincent's case in “Gatacca”

During Mariam's childhood, Jalil embodies a sort of hero for her, event if he left Mariam and Nana. When he comes to see Mariam every thursday and brings her presents, Mariam is the happiest girl in the world. That it makes Jalil a sort of hero, Mariam should hate him for xhat he've done and on the contrary she sometimes hates her mother for trying to destroy this love and this complicity. Instead of resenting Jalil for his comportment, she loves him very much ans look up to him. When Jalil abandons Mariam in front of his house, Mariam understands that she has been deceived by her father exactly as Nana. In 5 minutes she understabds that Jalil is a coward and a traitor and that her mother was right since the beginning. At this moment she loses all her bearings and her world collapses because of the man she admired during all her childhood. After being the hero of Mariam's childhood, he become the villain of her teenage, he sounds like heartless and ruthless. It's only at the end of the book that we discover the truth about him, we see life in its complexity. When Laila and Tariq return in Afghanistan indeed, they fond a packet Jalil left for Mariam. This packet contains a videotape, some money and a letter in which he tries to redeem himself. By giving her her share of his legacy, he legitimizis her and restablishes her as a member of his familyThe letter shows that Jalil is not as bad as we could think, he really loved his daughter and never wanted to hurt her. To conclude it's really hard to descrive Jalil as a hero or an anti hero, he's just a vixtim of the society in Afganistan like Mariam and Nana. The gap between social classes is so big in that country that no one is free to act as he would like to, even wealthy people.

In Gattaca, Vincent is a young man who embodies the lane duck of the family because he's born with mental capacities but not physical's. When her mother gives birth to him, his father is disappointed as soon as he see his child. During all his childhood he suffers from a lack of love from his father and from discrimination, he can't have the same job as valids. However his dream is to go in space, and he's ready to do anything to achiever it. This is for me a hero, he doen't care what the others think, he just continue his way and never give up. His motivation is such as he'll become a janitor only to come closer to the stars then etend his legs and use Eugene's blood to acquire physical's capacities. He's ready not to respect Gattaca's rules whan he cleares the open space and uses computers even if he's not allowed. He finally kind of fight the nature by realizing his dream at the

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