Antihero

Last updated

Revisionist Western films commonly feature antiheroes as lead characters whose actions are morally ambiguous. Clint Eastwood, pictured here in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), portrayed the archetypal antihero called the "Man with No Name" in the Italian Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns. Clint Eastwood - 1960s.JPG
Revisionist Western films commonly feature antiheroes as lead characters whose actions are morally ambiguous. Clint Eastwood, pictured here in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), portrayed the archetypal antihero called the "Man with No Name" in the Italian Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns.

An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) [1] or antiheroine is a main character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. [1] Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that most of the audience considers morally correct, their reasons for doing so may not align with the audience's morality. [2]

Contents

Antihero is a literary term that can be understood as standing in opposition to the traditional hero, i.e., one with high social status, well liked by the general populace. Past the surface, scholars have additional requirements for the antihero. Some scholars refer to the "Racinian" antihero, who is defined by several factors. The first is that the antihero is doomed to fail before their adventure begins. The second constitutes the blame of that failure on everyone but themselves. Thirdly, they offer a critique of social morals and reality. [3] To other scholars, an antihero is inherently a hero from a specific point of view, and a villain from another. [4] This idea is further backed by the addition of character alignments, which are commonly displayed by role-playing games. [5]

Typically, an antihero is the focal point of conflict in a story, whether as the protagonist or as the antagonistic force. [6] This is due to the antihero's engagement in the conflict, typically of their own will, rather than a specific calling to serve the greater good. As such, the antihero focuses on their personal motives first and foremost, with everything else secondary. [7]

History

U.S. writer Jack Kerouac and other figures of the "Beat Generation" created reflective, critical protagonists who influenced the antiheroes of many later works. Kerouac by Palumbo.jpg
U.S. writer Jack Kerouac and other figures of the "Beat Generation" created reflective, critical protagonists who influenced the antiheroes of many later works.

An early antihero is Homer's Thersites. [8] The concept has also been identified in classical Greek drama, [9] Roman satire, and Renaissance literature [8] such as Don Quixote [9] [10] and the picaresque rogue. [11]

The term antihero was first used as early as 1714, [12] emerging in works such as Rameau's Nephew in the 18th century, [8] and is also used more broadly to cover Byronic heroes as well, created by the English poet Lord Byron. [13]

Literary Romanticism in the 19th century helped popularize new forms of the antihero, [14] [15] such as the Gothic double. [16] The antihero eventually became an established form of social criticism, a phenomenon often associated with the unnamed protagonist in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. [8] The antihero emerged as a foil to the traditional hero archetype, a process that Northrop Frye called the fictional "center of gravity". [17] This movement indicated a literary change in heroic ethos from feudal aristocrat to urban democrat, as was the shift from epic to ironic narratives. [17]

Huckleberry Finn (1884) has been called "the first antihero in the American nursery". [18] Charlotte Mullen of Somerville and Ross's The Real Charlotte (1894) has been described as an antiheroine. [19] [20] [21]

The antihero became prominent in early 20th century existentialist works such as Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis (1915), [22] Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938), [23] and Albert Camus's The Stranger (1942). [24] The protagonist in these works is an indecisive central character who drifts through his life and is marked by boredom, angst, and alienation. [25]

The antihero entered American literature in the 1950s and up to the mid-1960s as an alienated figure, unable to communicate. [26] The American antihero of the 1950s and 1960s was typically more proactive than his French counterpart. [27] The British version of the antihero emerged in the works of the "angry young men" of the 1950s. [9] [28] The collective protests of Sixties counterculture saw the solitary antihero gradually eclipsed from fictional prominence, [27] though not without subsequent revivals in literary and cinematic form. [26]

During the Golden Age of Television from the 2000s and into the present time, antiheroes such as Tony Soprano, Gregory House, Walter White, Don Draper, Marty Byrde, Nucky Thompson and Jax Teller became prominent in the most popular and critically acclaimed TV shows. [29] [30] [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fyodor Dostoevsky</span> Russian novelist (1821–1881)

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Numerous literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces.

<i>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> 1885 novel by Mark Twain

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Picaresque novel</span> Genre of prose fiction featuring "rascal"-like protagonists

The picaresque novel is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. Picaresque novels typically adopt the form of "an episodic prose narrative" with a realistic style. There are often some elements of comedy and satire. While the term "picaresque novel" was only coined in 1810, the picaresque novel originated in Imperial Rome during the 1st-2nd century CE, in particular with works such as the Satyricon of Petronius and later, and more particularly with authors such as Apuleius in Roman Numidia. It would see a revival in Spain during the Spanish Golden Age in 1554. Early Spanish contributors included Mateo Alemán and Francisco de Quevedo, who were influenced in particular by Apuleius' 2nd century work. Other notable ancient influences of the modern picaresque genre include Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence. The Golden Ass of Apuleius nevertheless remains, according to many scholars such as F. W. Chandler, A. Marasso, T. Somerville and T. Bodenmüller, the primary influence for the modern Picaresque genre. Subsequently, after the revival in Spain, the genre flourished throughout Europe for more than 200 years for the first time since the Roman period. It continues to influence modern literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protagonist</span> Main character of a creative work

A protagonist is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a story contains a subplot, or is a narrative made up of several stories, then each subplot may have its own protagonist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Twain</span> American author and humorist (1835–1910)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villain</span> Evil character or person

A villain is a stock character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction. Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines such a character as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot". The antonym of a villain is a hero.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenzaburō Ōe</span> Japanese writer and Nobel Laureate (1935–2023)

Kenzaburō Ōe was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antagonist</span> Character of a work actively opposing the protagonist

An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy and rival of the protagonist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great American Novel</span> Canonical novel that is thought to embody the essence of America

The Great American Novel is the term for a canonical novel that generally embodies and examines the essence and character of the United States. The term was coined by John William De Forest in an 1868 essay and later shortened to GAN. De Forest noted that the Great American Novel had most likely not been written yet.

<i>Huckleberry Finn and His Friends</i> 1979 television series

Huckleberry Finn and His Friends is a 1979 television series documenting the exploits of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, based on the novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by American writer Mark Twain. The series consists of 26 episodes and was a Canadian/West German international co-production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Korean literature</span> Literature of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea

Reading is a popular pastime in North Korea, where literacy and books enjoy a high cultural standing, elevated by the regime's efforts to disseminate propaganda as texts. Because of this, writers are held in high prestige.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. W. Kemble</span> American illustrator

Edward Winsor Kemble, usually cited as E. W. Kemble, and sometimes referred to incorrectly as Edward Windsor Kemble, was an American illustrator. He is known best for illustrating the first edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and for his caricatures of African Americans.

Jim (<i>Huckleberry Finn</i>) Fictional character

James "Jim" is one of two major fictional characters in the classic 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The book chronicles his and Huckleberry's raft journey down the Mississippi River in the antebellum Southern United States. Jim is a black man who is fleeing slavery; "Huck", a 13-year-old white boy, joins him in spite of his own conventional understanding and the law.

Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is a 1990 American television family drama film directed by Paul Krasny and written by Roy Johansen, based on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. It aired on the Disney Channel on October 21, 1990. In the film, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn work to save their friend Jim from a charge of murder.

<i>Poor Folk</i> Novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Poor Folk, sometimes translated as Poor People, is the first novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, written over the span of nine months between 1844 and 1845. Dostoevsky was in financial difficulty because of his extravagant lifestyle and his developing gambling addiction; although he had produced some translations of foreign novels, they had little success, and he decided to write a novel of his own to try to raise funds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Campbell (actor)</span> British actor, born 1937

Colin Campbell was an English actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fool (stock character)</span> Stock character in creative works

The fool is a stock character in creative works and folklore. There are several distinct, although overlapping, categories of fool: simpleton fool, wise fool, and serendipitous fool.

Victor Henri Brombert is an American scholar of nineteenth and twentieth century literature, the Henry Putnam University Professor at Princeton University.

<i>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</i> 1876 novel by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an 1876 novel by Mark Twain about a boy, Tom Sawyer, growing up along the Mississippi River. It is set in the 1840s in the town of St. Petersburg, which is based on Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived as a boy. In the novel, Sawyer has several adventures, often with his friend Huckleberry Finn. Originally a commercial failure, the book ended up being the best-selling of Twain's works during his lifetime. Though overshadowed by its 1884 sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the book is considered by many to be a masterpiece of American literature. It is alleged by Mark Twain to be one of the first novels to be written on a typewriter.

References

  1. 1 2 "Anti-Hero". Lexico . Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  2. ↑ Laham, Nicholas (2009). Currents of Comedy on the American Screen: How Film and Television Deliver Different Laughs for Changing Times. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. p. 51. ISBN   9780786442645.
  3. ↑ Kennedy, Theresa Varney (2014). "'No Exit' in Racine's Phèdre: The Making of the Anti-Hero". The French Review . 88 (1): 165–178. doi:10.1353/tfr.2014.0114. ISSN   2329-7131. S2CID   256361158.
  4. ↑ Klapp, Orrin E. (September 1948). "The Creation of Popular Heroes". American Journal of Sociology . 54 (2): 135–141. doi:10.1086/220292. ISSN   0002-9602. S2CID   143440315.
  5. ↑ Waskul, Dennis; Lust, Matt (August 2004). "Role-Playing and Playing Roles: The Person, Player, and Persona in Fantasy Role-Playing". Symbolic Interaction. 27 (3): 333–356. doi:10.1525/si.2004.27.3.333. ISSN   0195-6086.
  6. ↑ Petersen, Michael Bang (2019). "An Age of Chaos?". RSA Journal. 165 (3 (5579)): 44–47. ISSN   0958-0433. JSTOR   26907483.
  7. ↑ Klapp, Orrin E. (1948). "The Creation of Popular Heroes". American Journal of Sociology. 54 (2): 135–141. doi:10.1086/220292. ISSN   0002-9602. JSTOR   2771362. S2CID   143440315.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Steiner, George (2013). Tolstoy Or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism. New York: Open Road. pp. 197–207. ISBN   9781480411913.
  9. 1 2 3 "antihero". Encyclopædia Britannica. 14 February 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
  10. ↑ Wheeler, L. Lip. "Literary Terms and Definitions A". Dr. Wheeler's Website. Carson-Newman University . Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  11. ↑ Halliwell, Martin (2007). American Culture in the 1950s . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p.  60. ISBN   9780748618859.
  12. ↑ "Antihero". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 31 August 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  13. ↑ Wheeler, L. Lip. "Literary Terms and Definitions B". Dr. Wheeler's Website. Carson-Newman University . Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  14. ↑ Alsen, Eberhard (2014). The New Romanticism: A Collection of Critical Essays. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. p. 72. ISBN   9781317776000 . Retrieved 20 April 2015– via Google Books.
  15. ↑ Simmons, David (2008). The Anti-Hero in the American Novel: From Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 5. ISBN   9780230612525 . Retrieved 20 April 2015– via Google Books.
  16. ↑ Lutz, Deborah (2006). The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-century Seduction Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. p. 82. ISBN   9780814210345 . Retrieved 20 April 2015– via Google Books.
  17. 1 2 Frye, Northrop (2002). Anatomy of Criticism . London: Penguin. p. 34. ISBN   9780141187099.
  18. ↑ Hearn, Michael Patrick (2001). The Annotated Huckleberry Finn: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. xvci. ISBN   0393020398.
  19. ↑ Ehnenn, Jill R. (2008). Women's Literary Collaboration, Queerness, and Late-Victorian Culture. Ashgate Publishing. p. 159. ISBN   9780754652946 . Retrieved 7 April 2020– via Google Books.
  20. ↑ Cooke, Rachel (27 February 2011). "The 10 best Neglected literary classics – in pictures". The Guardian . Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  21. ↑ Woodcock, George (1 April 1983). Twentieth Century Fiction. Macmillan Publishers Ltd. p. 628. ISBN   9781349170661 . Retrieved 7 April 2020– via Google Books.
  22. ↑ Barnhart, Joe E. (2005). Dostoevsky's Polyphonic Talent. Lanham: University Press of America. p. 151. ISBN   9780761830979.
  23. ↑ Asong, Linus T. (2012). Psychological Constructs and the Craft of African Fiction of Yesteryears: Six Studies. Mankon: Langaa Research & Publishing CIG. p. 76. ISBN   9789956727667 – via Google Books.
  24. ↑ Gargett, Graham (2004). Heroism and Passion in Literature: Studies in Honour of Moya Longstaffe. Amsterdam: Rodopi. p. 198. ISBN   9789042016927 – via Google Books.
  25. ↑ Brereton, Geoffery (1968). A Short History of French Literature. Penguin Books. pp. 254–255.
  26. 1 2 Hardt, Michael; Weeks, Kathi (2000). The Jameson Reader (Reprint ed.). Oxford, UK ; Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. pp. 294–295. ISBN   9780631202707.
  27. 1 2 Edelstein, Alan (1996). Everybody is Sitting on the Curb: How and why America's Heroes Disappeared. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. pp. 1, 18. ISBN   9780275953645.
  28. ↑ Ousby, Ian (1996). The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Literature in English. New York: Cambridge University Press. p.  27. ISBN   9780521436274.
  29. ↑ Reese, Hope (11 July 2013). "Why Is the Golden Age of TV So Dark?". The Atlantic . Retrieved 31 October 2021. A new book explains the link between the rise of antihero protaganists and the unprecedented abundance of great TV (and what Dick Cheney has to do with it).
  30. ↑ Faithfull, E. (2021). How House brought the "savant anti-hero" into the mainstream and changed TV dramas. www.nine.com.au. https://www.nine.com.au/entertainment/latest/house-savant-anti-hero-medical-drama-9now/0e030210-8bfe-424f-b687-f2e36e6f0694
  31. ↑ Pruner, A. (n.d.). Hear us out: Gregory House was TV's last great doctor. https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/hear-us-out-gregory-house-was-tvs-last-great-doctor/
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.