Introduction
Becoming a hero requires competence in what an individual attempts to do. One may lose the title of a hero simply because of their failure to accomplish the right things appropriately as desirable. A hero should develop the courage to face the difficulties presented by certain situations in their life. Based on the two stories in question, the characters fail to become heroes because they are defeated and do not face the situations, as they should. The paper focuses on proving that young Goodman brown and George Orwell fail to become heroes since they do not courageously face the challenging situations before them
Discussion
In “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” by Hawthorne, Goodman cannot reconcile his experience in the dream and nurture his feelings so that he can face the challenges ahead of him competently. After noticing the staff in the fellow travelers hands, Goodman does not consider the right option since he knows that whatever the fellow traveler carries depicts evil. The staff eventually leads Goodman to the ceremony of the devil. This turns out to be a dream, which indeed affects this man greatly. When he awakens from the dream, he is completely shattered and devastated. When he strolls in the streets of Salem, Goodman can hardly separate his dream from reality. This clearly shows that the dream acts upon him so that he is unable to cope with the things happening in his life. He finds it increasingly difficult to cope with his discovery, that there is potential for evil residing in everybody. However, if he composed himself better and remained firm in his belief and faith about the possibility of overcoming this difficulty, this would enable him to handle the challenging discovery effectively. This would earn him a recognizable level of heroism. After the dream, the rest of his life is shattered by the inability to face truth and live with it. The dream makes him withdrawn so that he cannot even help his friend leaving him alone and depressed simply because of the doubt, which develops in his mind. Eventually, he is isolated from the society since he believes others have faults that he does not recognize he has also. This clearly shows that he is not a hero as he has failed to face the truth, to acknowledge the weaknesses inherent in everyman, and handle the situation as it is. This is why his life ends miserable and as such, he fails to be a hero.
In “SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT” by George Orwell, Orwell fails to be a hero simply because he fears that people will make fun of him if he does not shoot the elephant. Despite his knowledge that he can make a better choice, he goes ahead to shoot the elephant in order to please the audience. In his own moral and ethical code, Orwell knew that it was not good at all to kill the elephant. However, it was better to take the elephant to the game reserve or another appropriate place. The elephant was only prompted by lust to do the harm it did. However, in order to preserve what would have been considered as the common good, Orwell did what he did not want to do. He only acted in order to please the villagers and avoid them making fun of him. This clearly shows that he failed to be a hero simply because he did not act out of his discernment, but out of the pressure about what the people would think of him. He had hoped to frighten the animal with the noise of the rifle. However, he had to think deeply about the appropriate action, which would please the civilians. As such, the act of shooting the elephant later haunted him simply because its death process was slower than expected. He had obviously shot the elephant in order to avoid looking like a fool in the eyes of the civilians who expected him to shoot the animal because it had caused tremendous damage. This clearly shows that he failed to be a hero simply because he did not do what he considered as morally ideal, but acted to please others.
Conclusion
