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Humanities 310 • Plagiarism, Sources, and Documentation
You’re required to know the CSUDH plagiarism policy in the catalog. If you copy from another source
without proper acknowlegement/documentation, the consequences will normally include my assigning
an F for the course and reporting it to the Vice President’s office for disciplinary action. I may require
that you submit essays in electronic format.
You are asked not to consult secondary sources for your Short Essays or Midterm and Final Essays.
Since we're all using the same editions of Campbell and the literary works, you don't need to cite them
formally in a Works Cited list—when you quote from Campbell or from a work of fiction, just cite the
page number in parentheses; when you quote poetry or drama, just cite line number or act/scene/line
number in parentheses:
• Kurtz’s final resolution in Heart of Darkness is to “Exterminate all the brutes!” (39).
• Campbell contends that “the hero’s adventure isn’t over till it’s over” (213).
• It’s the Fool in Happy Days who reminds us, “I’ll speak a prophecy ere I go” (3. 2.75).
• Milton’s speaker in Lycidas ends on a note of reassurance and resurrected hope: “The
shepherds weep no more/Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore” (192-93).
If you do use outside sources of any kind, follow the “new” (post-1984) MLA format for documentation,
which does away with footnotes and bibliography and replaces them with a system of in-text
parenthetical citation keyed to a "Works Cited" list at the end of the paper. If you're unfamiliar with it,
pick up a copy of the fifth edition MLA Handbook and keep it close to your bedside, but here's a crash
course in the MLA system. If you quote, paraphrase material, or borrow ideas from a secondary source
(even an editor’s introduction or web site), you must document properly in the text of your paper:
• According to Amoretti, Heart of Darkness “marks the end of Victorian fiction” (vii).
• Giannotti has suggested that the Italians are a strange but happy people, "beardless and
bootless, with a gift for language and song" (153).
Note that this rule applies to any material you use from an editor’s introduction or critical essay in the
editions we’re using (which generally isn’t recommended). Again, you must document the specific
writer and introduction, essay, or footnote you’re borrowing from:
• According to one critic of the play, for Hamlet, “readiness is all” (Kettle 246).
Once you’ve cited the source in your text, your Works Cited list at the end of the paper will cite books
and articles or chapters in books like this:
• Amoretti, Spenser. “Preface.” Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad. New York: Penguin,
1995. ii-viii.
• Giannotti, Thomas J. My People, My Pasta, My Patrimony. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998.
• Salsa di Pomodori, Mario. "The Wine Presses of the Lord." Sources for Viticulture. Ed.
Pasquale Firmi. Las Vegas: Basta, 1994. 17-31.
• Kettle, Arnold, “Hamlet in a Changing World.” Hamlet. Ed. Cyrus Hoy. 2nd ed. New York:
Norton, 1992. 237-46.
For more details about journal, magazine, and web sources, please consult the MLA Handbook, sixth
edition.
I'm a pre-law major, therefore the ability to write I believe it, in fact, the evidence is conclusive.
well is important to me.
I'm a pre-law major; therefore, the ability I believe it because the evidence is
to write well is important to me. conclusive.
Careful, though, of overusing semicolons. The sentence below, for example, only requires a comma:
frag Fragment. An incomplete sentence (usually a subordinate clause of some kind) punctuated with a
period. If an RTS is a sentence with two main clauses, a fragment is just the reverse—a sentence
with no main clause at all. Italics mark the incorrect versions:
It was a beautiful face. A face to launch a thousand We parted on friendly terms. Which is the way she
ships. wanted it.
It was a beautiful face, a face to launch a We parted on friendly terms, which is the
thousand ships. way she wanted it.
T Tense. Most seriously, incorrect tense formations can be a problem for non-native and dialect writers,
and they require extremely close editing on the writer's part. Less serious but more frequent is the
problem of referring to literary sources in the past tense. Generally, present tense should be used to
refer to a literary narrative. Thus, "The Captain in Conrad's story writes a letter home" instead of
"wrote a letter home."
WC Word Choice. Any use of inexact, unnecessary, or illogical words and phrases. Includes vagueness,
wordiness, ambiguity, and needless repetition.
SC Sentence Combining. Sentence combining isn't itself the problem, but a way of addressing the
stylistic problem of sentences that are limited to short, flat subject-verb statements laid end to end.
They often repeat words unnecessarily (especially the same subject) and don't indicate the connections
between themselves. They need to be combined with each other to form longer units, so several
simple sentences with main clauses only can be converted to one complex sentence with one main
clause and several subordinate ones.
¶ Paragraphing. Paragraph problems generally go beyond simple editing because they usually involve
larger issues of continuity or development of thought, but sometimes they're only cosmetic problems
because you're merely inserting paragraph breaks too often and unnecessarily. A reliable all-purpose
rule is that paragraphs should never consist of less than a hefty handful of sentences, and if you're
indenting more often than that, it's high time to rethink your paragraph structure and development.
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1. Choose two of the following works: Oedipus Rex, Cool Hand Luke, Hamlet, “Prufrock,”
Death of a Salesman. Assuming that a true hero reflects his society’s values, discuss the extent
to which your two heroes embody (or don’t embody) the social values around them. Be sure
to explain what the society’s specific values are, and why, and illustrate how your heroes reflect
or fail to reflect them.
2. Choose one theme or motif (or two very closely related ones) from the “Some Thematic
Patterns” handout. Discuss, compare, and contrast the uses of that theme in the heroes of two
of the following: Oedipus Rex, Cool Hand Luke, Hamlet, “Prufrock,” Salesman.
3. Discuss the heroes of two of the following works, arguing for one as hero, one as antihero:
Oedipus Rex, Cool Hand Luke, Hamlet, “Prufrock,” Death of a Salesman. Be sure to define
the terms “hero” and “antihero” consistently, according to the definitions we’ve developed in
class, and use your characters to exemplify the specific features of a hero and an antihero.
Final Essay Questions • Three-four pages (750-1000 words, typed if written out of class).
Please choose one of the questions below as the basis for your essay. You’re urged not to use
outside sources, but if reference to secondary sources is absolutely necessary, please refer to the
“Policy on Dishonesty” and “Sources and Documentation” sections of the syllabus and be sure to
quote, paraphrase, and document appropriately. Take care to center your discussion around a thesis
or clearly stated perspective and refer specifically to the texts/films for examples. Please remember
to identify which question you’re answering by number. Due at class time on final class day.
1. Choose two of the following works: Charlotte Temple, A Doll House, Sula, Heart of
Darkness, Apocalypse Now. Assuming that a true hero reflects his society’s values, discuss the
extent to which your two heroes embody (or don’t embody) the social values around them. Be
sure to explain what the society’s specific values are, and why, and illustrate how your heroes
reflect or fail to reflect them.
2. Choose one theme or motif (or two very closely related ones) from the “Some Thematic
Patterns” handout. Discuss, compare, and contrast the uses of that theme in the heroes of two
of the following: Charlotte Temple, A Doll House, Sula, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now.
3. Take special care on this one: “antihero” will be trickier to define with this group of texts.
Discuss the heroes of two of the following works, arguing for one as hero, one as antihero:
Charlotte Temple, A Doll House, Sula, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now. Be sure to define
the terms “hero” and “antihero” consistently, according to the definitions we’ve developed in
class, and use your characters to exemplify the specific features of a hero and an antihero.
Humanities 310 • Definitions of the Hero • Aristotle and Frye
In his Poetics, Aristotle was the first to discusss the art of making, composing, or telling stories
(Aristotle’s poesis, the word from which our “poetry” comes, literally means making). At the very
beginning of his discussion of how stories are told, he insists that they are all, in some way or another,
representations or imitations of the world around us—of the actions, people, things, ideas, feelings, that
make up life as we know it. Take a look below at what Aristotle has to say about the kinds of people
who are imitated in storytelling, and how we make the most fundamental judgments about what kind of
a person, or hero, we’re witnessing.
1 Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art. Trans. S. H. Butcher. 1894. New York: Dover, 1951.
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Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be either of a higher or lower type
(for moral character mainly answers to these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing
marks of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as
worse, or as they are. It is the same in painting. Polygnotus depicted men as nobler than they are,
Pauson as less noble, Dionysius drew them true to life (11). . . . The same distinction marks off tragedy
from comedy for comedy aims at representing men as worse, tragedy as better than in actual life (13). . . .
Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type—not, however, in the full sense of
the word bad, the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness
which is not painful or destructive (21).
Again, tragedy is the imitation of an action, and an action implies personal agents, who
necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought (25). . . . [Tragedy] should,
moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation. It
follows plainly, in the first place, the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous
man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this moves us neither to pity nor fear; it merely shocks us.
Nor, again, that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity for nothing can be more alien to the
spirit of tragedy. . . . Nor, again, the downfall of the utter villain be exhibited. Plot of this kind would,
doubtless, satisfy the moral sense, but it would inspire neither pity nor fear for pity is aroused by
unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves. Such an event, therefore, will be
neither pitiful nor terrible. There remains, then, the character between these two extremes—that of a man
who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but
by some error or frailty. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous—a (45) personage like
Oedipus, Thystes, or other illustrious men of such families (47).
And with that, Aristotle is off on his famous definition of the tragic hero and his equally famous theory
of tragic catharsis, which claims that by arousing and purging the emotions of pity (or empathy) and
fear (or terror), tragedies allow us to release unhealthy emotions and, in effect, become better people.
Both of those—the tragic hero and tragic catharsis—are ideas we’ll discuss in more detail later, but for
now consider just how simple Aristotle’s statement about heroes and storytelling really is: good or
“high” character makes for a tragic or serious story; bad or “low” character makes for a comic or
satirical or silly story.
But how do we decide what’s good and what’s bad, what’s high and what’s low? Who decides
who gets to be the good, the bad, and the ugly? Clearly, Aristotle had moral criteria in mind, and
though we probably wouldn’t agree with him about a lot of virtues and vices—most people in
Aristotle’s society were slaves, and we probably wouldn’t agree with the “justice” of a society or
government that upholds slavery—we’d probably agree with the way he bases his thinking on a social
norm. When Yogi claimed that he was “smarter than the average bear, Boo-Boo,” he was making a
practical assumption that we all make at all times: people (and bears) are different. And a range of
difference implies a norm or average in the middle. Exactly what a normal or average character or
behavior is would be pretty hard to agree on, but we do assume a norm or average of behavior and
character exists—otherwise, we’d stop for green lights. Think about it: every time you go through a
green light, you’re acting on the assumption that most people going the other way are intelligent,
perceptive, and law-abiding enough to recognize what a red light means and stop for it. Whether
norms are good or bad, without their existence, we might all be roadkill because they allow for a
consensus of some kind that we can base our social actions on. But let’s see what happens to
Aristotle’s assumption of norms if we give a little more thought to the different types of heroes and
types of stories there are out there. Aristotle’s had lots of intelligent followers, but none perhaps quite
so brilliant as the literary scholar Northrop Frye, whose thoughts on the subject will repay your
attention richly. The first essay in his Anatomy of Criticism starts below where Aristotle left off.
2 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957. 33-34.
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2. If superior in degree to other men and to his environment, the hero is the typical hero of romance,
whose actions are marvelous but who is himself identified as a human being. The hero of romance moves in a
world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended: prodigies of courage and endurance,
unnatural to us, are natural to him, and enchanted weapons, talking animals, terrifying ogres and witches, and
talismans of miraculous power violate no rule of probability once the postulates of romance have been
established. Here we have moved from myth, properly so called, into legend, folk tale, märchen, and their
literary affiliates and derivatives.
3. If superior in degree to other men but not to his natural environment (33), the hero is a leader. He
has authority, passions, and powers of expression far greater than ours, but what he does is subject both to
social criticism and to the order of nature. This is the hero of the high mimetic mode, of most epic and tragedy,
and is primarily the kind of hero that Aristotle had in mind.
4. If superior neither to other men nor to his environment, the hero is one of us: we respond to a sense
of his common humanity, and demand from the poet the same canons of probability that we find in our own
experience. This gives us the hero of the low mimetic mode, of most comedy and of realistic fiction. “High”
and “low” have no connotations of comparative value, but are purely diagrammatic . . . .
5. If inferior in power or intelligence to ourselves, so that we have the sense of looking down on a
scene of bondage, frustration, or absurdity, the hero belongs to the ironic mode. This is still true when the
reader feels that he is or might be in the same situation, as the situation is being judged by the norms of a
greater freedom (34).
And indeed there will be time I should have been a pair of ragged claws4
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time * * * * * *
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create, And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
And time for all the works and days of hands Smoothed by long fingers,
That lift and drop a question on your plate; Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Time for you and time for me, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions, Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
And for a hundred visions and revisions, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
Before the taking of a toast and tea. But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
In the room the women come and go brought in upon a platter,5
Talking of Michelangelo. I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And indeed there will be time I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’ snicker,
Time to turn back and descend the stair, And in short, I was afraid.
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’) And would it have been worth it, after all,
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the After the cups the marmalade, the tea,
chin, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple Would it have been worth while,
pin— To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
(They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’) To have squeezed the universe into a ball
Do I dare To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
Disturb the universe? To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,6
In a minute there is time Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
For decisions and revisions which a minute will If one, settling a pillow by her head,
reverse. Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.’
For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have know the evenings, mornings, afternoons, And would it have been worth it, after all,
I have measure out my life with coffee spoons; Would it have been worth while,
I know the voices dying with a dying fall After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled
Beneath the music from a farther room. streets,
So how should I presume? After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that
trail along the floor—
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— And this, and so much more?—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, It is impossible to say just what I mean!
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in pattersn
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, on a screen;
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 4 Hamlet tells Polonius (3.2.205-6) that “you yourself, sir,
And how should I presume? should be as old as I am if, like a crab, you could go
backward.”
And I have known the arms already, known them all— 5 The prophet alluded to here is John the Baptist, whose
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare head was brought to Salome on a platter (Mark 6.17-20).
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) 6 See the New Testament for the resurrection of Lazarus
(John 11.1-44).
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Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say,
‘That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.’
* * * * * *
• Mysterious Origins or Past (Moses among the bulrushes, the unknown parentage of Oedipus)
• Disguised Identity (Odysseus upon his return to Ithaca)
• Ritual Scar, Mark of Identity (Odysseus’ scar, Pike’s leg in The Wild Bunch, Ratso Rizzo’s leg in
Midnight Cowboy)
• Summons to the Quest (Christ and John the Baptist, Telemachos and Athena)
• Cyclic Departure and Return (Odysseus’s travels)
• Faithful Friend or Servant (Eumaios in the Odyssey, Horatio in Hamlet)
• Betrayal or Suspected Betrayal (Judas, Laertes in Hamlet)
• Patterns of Ascent and Descent (Christ’s descent into the grave and resurrection, Marlow’s journey
upriver in Heart of Darkness)
• Rite of Initiation or Passage (Adela Quested in the Marabar Caves in Passage to India)
• Consulting the Mentor (Telemachos/Nestor, Mentor; the “old men” in The Wild Bunch)
• Descent into the Unconscious or Night-Sea Journey (Job in the whale’s belly)
• Underworld Journey (Odysseus’s meeting with Tiresias in Hades, Prufrock’s descent into a private
hell)
• Supernatural Intervention (ghost of Hamlet’s father)
• Hero’s Narrative of His Adventures (Odysseus’s tale of his adventures among the Phaiakians)
• Symbolic Death or Maiming (Christ, Odysseus’s act of self-blinding)
• Ritual Cleansing (Christ’s baptism, anointing of his feet by Mary Magdalen)
• Symbolic or Bodily Healing of Wounds (Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars, Yojimbo)
• Captivity and Escape (Odysseus in Cyclops’ cave, Eastwood, Angel’s capture in The Wild Bunch,
Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck in New York/Florida)
• Retreat to Pastoral “Greenworld” (Angel’s village in The Wild Bunch)
• Retreat to Wilderness Isolation (Christ in the wilderness, Adela at the temple in Passage to India)
• Wandering (Oedipus before his arrival at Thebes)
• Wasteland Crossing (Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness, Percival in the Grail legends,
Gawain’s winter journey in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight)
• Rescue of/by the Hero (Angel in The Wild Bunch)
• Trial by Combat (Menelaus’s wrestling with Proteus in The Odyssey)
• Trial by Water (storms/shipwrecks of The Odyssey, river crossings in The Wild Bunch)
• Trial by Sexual Temptation (Odysseus with Circe or Calypso, Gawain’s dalliances in Sir Gawain)
• Trial by Economic/Social Temptation (Nora’s wish to remain with Torvald)
• Trial by Spiritual Temptation (Christ in Gethsemane or in the wilderness)
• Trial by Temptation to Death (Hamlet’s suicide wish)
• Atonement with Father (Christ/Father, Telemachos/Odysseus, Hamlet/Hamlet)
• Reconciliation with Mother (Hamlet and Gertrude)
• Attainment of or Reunion with Spouse (Odysseus and Penelope)
• Symbolic Weapon (the great bow of Odysseus, Eastwood’s revolver, Yojimbo’s sword, Willy
Loman’s car)
• Apotheosis of Hero (Christ’s assumption into heaven, Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus)
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• Rebirth of the Social Order (Fortinbras’s arrival in Hamlet, ending of Oedipus, The Wild Bunch)
• Achievement of Transcendent Understanding (Oedipus, Hamlet, Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy)
Humanities 310 • Heroism/Antiheroism • Character
Traits/Values
So far, we’ve seen one definition of antiheroism in Northrop Frye’s thinking about the hero of an ironic
story. As he tells us, “If inferior in power or intelligence to ourselves, so that we have the sense of
looking down on a scene of bondage, frustration, or absurdity, the hero belongs to the ironic mode.” In
other words, an antihero is a hero who’s defined less by his “powers” than by his limitations—though
he may have heroic aspirations, like Eliot’s Prufrock, he is prevented from achieving them by the
conditions of his world (his lack of freedom, powerlessness, alienation).
A second way of defining the difference between heroism and antiheroism is this: if the hero typically
reflects and responds to the values of his society, then the antihero fails to do so or embodies values in
conflict with those of his community—most often simply because the antihero lives in a world whose
values are no longer universally shared. Oedipus and Hamlet, for example, have a chance at
succeeding because their societies agree on what heroism is and should be; Eliot’s Prufrock, on the
other hand, doesn’t because his society doesn’t agree on what values are heroic.
Though hardly accurate as a representation of any single hero or antihero, the schema below might
provide you with a map of heroic and antiheroic ethics, a sort of genealogy of morals to compare with
and help define each of the characters we meet. But use with care. If you used Hamlet as a test case,
you might find that he qualifies for half the heroic qualities below, half the antiheroic ones. These are
not, therefore, defining traits of the hero or antihero. Only a model or definition of a hero will do that.
Heroism Antiheroism
Shared social values Disjunctive social values
Independence, autonomy Alienation, dependence
Fixed self Fluid self
Certainty Doubt
Belief in reason, virtue Skepticism
Firm sense of justice Confused sense of justice
Unusual physical attractiveness or power Unusual physical appearance
Mastery Victimization
Eloquence, ability to communicate Inability to communicate
Fraternity Isolation
Loyalty Divided loyalties
Deception only for honest ends Deceptions often misguided
Love Loneliness
Developed sexual identity Ambivalent sexual identity
Approved sexual behavior Ambiguous sexual behavior
Creativity Creative futility
Secure ethnic identity Conflicted ethnic identity
Elite class affiliation Lower class or outcast affiliation
Aristocratic Democratic or classless
Pre-industrial Industrial, post-industrial
Centripetal Centrifugal
Material prosperity Poverty
Stable life-style Picaresque life-style
Social or political enfranchisement Social or political marginalization
Stability Instability
Decisive Doubt-ridden
Active, forceful Passive, recessive
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Awareness of goals Ignorance of goals
Humanities 310 • Heroism and Antiheroism: A Bibliography
Course Objectives
Faculty are required to publish formal course objectives and means of “learning outcomes assessment”
in their courses. Though they won’t tell you more than I said in plain English under the course
description above, the learning objectives for this course and the means of achieving and assessing
them follow:
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Well-stocked local video stores will have most of the titles below.
Lawrence Olivier, Hamlet (1948). Olivier’s classic. A “Freudian” take on the play in its handling
of Oedipal themes. Runs 2:35, B/W.
Kenneth Branagh, Hamlet (1996). The best new-generation Hamlet, set in 19th-c Denmark,
directed by and starring Branagh, one of today’s leading Shakespeareans. Runs 3:58.
Andre Konchalovsky, The Odyssey (1997). Not bad for a film version.
Philip Saville, Oedipus the King (1968). Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles, Don Sutherland.
George Stevens, Shane (1953). Gives the first antiheroic turn to the classic western hero.
Akira Kurosawa, Yojimbo (1961). Samurai movie with anitheroic touches. See Fistful of Dollars
below for an astonishing comparison.
Sergio Leone, Fistful of Dollars (1964). The spaghetti-Western remake of Yojimbo that made
Clint Eastwood famous as the “Man with No Name.”
John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy (1969). Dustin Hoffman’s the crippled NY street hustler
“Ratso” Rizzo; Jon Voight’s a John-Wayne wannabe turned antihero. A buddy movie
ultimately, but a tragic one.
Arthur Penn, Little Big Man (1971). D. Hoffman as sole survivor of Custer’s Last Stand who’s
caught—confusingly, sometimes hilariously—between American Indian and white cultures.
Sam Peckinpah, The Wild Bunch (1969). Classic western with important redefinion of
(anti)heroism—an elegy for the passing of the Western hero. Compare Shane.
Joseph Losey, A Doll’s House (1973). Jane Fonda and Trevor Howard.
David Lean, A Passage to India (1984). British heroine, colonial hero—based on Forster’s novel.
Volker Schlondorff, Death of a Salesman (1985). Dustin Hoffman as Willy. The best film
version.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). Antiheroic “sequel” to Hamlet:
what would happen if the minor characters in Hamlet became major characters? This would.
Fax Bahr and Copolla, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991). Documentary on
the making of Copolla’s film by his wife (and others).
Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski (1998). A spoof of heroes and antiheroes that features
Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) as the antiheroic version of a Raymond Chandler-like noir detective.
Lots of foul, R-rated language, but otherwise pretty family-friendly and very possibly the
funniest movie ever made—if you like cerebral, multi-layered satire in which guys bowl a lot.
---. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). A comic, sometimes antiheroic turn to the Odysseus
story, only it’s set in 1937 Mississippi. The title and major themes come from Preston
Sturges’1941 film, Sullivan’s Travels. If you don’t see the movie, buy the CD for the music
score.
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