The Essence of a Hero

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

download word file, 1 pages 3.0

What do these people have in common? Galileo, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Andrew Young, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, Batman, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Herman B. Wells, Marcus Garvey? Well, they're all extraordinary individuals. They're inspirational. They have overcome incredible odds. They're all, in a sense, undefeatable. Simply, they're heroes! A hero benefits us in many different ways. The obvious way is the practical gain that we get. For instance, Granville T. Woods: When he put in years of effort to develop the improvements of the electrical overhead railroad system, the benefits to the rest of us is obvious. We have another form a transportation that we didn't have previously.

At the deeper level, aside from the practical benefit that we get from a hero's achievement, what is even more important is the inspiration that we can derive from the hero when we see somebody like Michael Jordan who struggle for years to develop the skill and excitement that created a new standard in professional sports.

Or when we see somebody like Charles R. Drew, the great Scientist of African descent who developed a theory of the importance of blood plasma and was rejected - not just by the common man but by the Scientific and Medical establishment - and he has to fight for years to get his ideas accepted. We see the kind of struggle that these individuals go through and eventually they triumph and the positive impact it has on human life.

After realizing the significance of the idea or concept of what a hero is, we can then ask ourselves the question: If a character such as Jefferson or Grant Wiggins, from the novel, can go through all of that struggle to reach their distinct achievements, what can I do in my Own...