Antihero

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Anti-hero
)

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]

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.

An early antihero is

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

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.

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

References

  1. ^ a b "Anti-Hero". Lexico. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  2. .
  3. .
  4. .
  5. .
  6. .
  7. .
  8. ^ .
  9. ^ a b c "antihero". Encyclopædia Britannica. 14 February 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
  10. Carson-Newman University
    . Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  11. .
  12. ^ "Antihero". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 31 August 2012. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  13. Carson-Newman University
    . Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  14. ISBN 9781317776000. Retrieved 20 April 2015 – via Google Books
    .
  15. ISBN 9780230612525. Retrieved 20 April 2015 – via Google Books
    .
  16. ISBN 9780814210345. Retrieved 20 April 2015 – via Google Books
    .
  17. ^ .
  18. .
  19. 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. ISBN 9781349170661. Retrieved 7 April 2020 – via Google Books
    .
  22. .
  23. .
  24. .
  25. ^ Brereton, Geoffery (1968). A Short History of French Literature. Penguin Books. pp. 254–255.
  26. ^ .
  27. ^ .
  28. .
  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/

External links