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What Makes a Hero St. Charles Herald-Guide. Saturday, November 10, 2001.By Elizabeth Blevins Editor's Note: High School Senior Elizabeth Blevins was recently awarded the National Council of Teachers of English Award for her essay "What Makes a Hero." The following is a reprint of her essay. Gentle men are counted as weak; mothers and wives are scorned as useless and conforming. Everyone in America is racing toward what they can get here, now, and fast. Intelligent men and women, those with ideas for the future, are thereby shoved aside and overlooked in the dash and haste. Who has time to look for a hero, much less be one? My American history teacher compared America's restless lust for life with China's calm long view. She said that such a country, having lived for so long, will continue on long after America has run itself out. With idols like Superman crashing through walls or the recent memories of Bill Clinton's bombings, America's idea of the traditional hero has warped from George Washington to some vague combination of indestructible youth and superhuman stupidity. Our men are being praised for being large and mean. Our heroine has become plastic, silicon, and suicidally thin. She is no longer conquering the trials of life and land -- she is marching down Main Street in army boots, protesting against those who disapprove of her. What has happened to our women? Our mothers, our wives, our nurturers? We have lost them to this new, chic, modern parody of a female. Men and women have the right to be human, but this new, graceless, aggressive stance is not what the new millennium needs. We need no force but calm logic and no stance but a righteous one. For, if we do the right thing, who dares tell us that we are wrong? Yet, every human is flawed. Every hero is human. But there is one man, in all of history, that is not. One man who walked along the Jordan River, danced at weddings, found fish where there were none, cured blindness with spit, fed five thousand with one boy's lunch, saw eons down the road and allowed himself to be kicked and spat upon so that China and England and Russia and Japan and yes, even America, might be free of the persecution of the soul. He is the immortal hero, and he never stormed down Main Street with a banner. He made his purpose and worth known through kind words, gentle touches, and led thousands, simply because he cared. America is in need of a hero, but he shall not be found in a comic book. He is living in children, secretaries, teachers, and mailmen. He is here, but unless America searches for the long-term instead of beating its Herculean path through walls, then we will continue to be lost of a true, reigning hero. One who knows, cares, and helps. Back |
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