Heroes of Great Literature

Who are the heroes of great literature? What makes them so? Is it possible even to answer such questions with a modicum of precision?

Literary analysis is not as clear-cut as, say, mathematics. In the latter, if you multiply four times four and get an answer other than sixteen, you are mistaken. There is no room for interpretation or preferences. But in analyzing literature, or the arts more broadly, there is a substantial personal element. Different individuals may agree on philosophy, morality, and politics. And they might be scrupulously honest, rational people. Yet, their personal responses to a work of art might be profoundly different.

Part of the underlying reason for this is that an individual’s emotional responses to art are substantially grounded in his life experiences, and these vary immensely from one person to the next. Thus, rational people can and do legitimately disagree about the value of a given work of art. And even when people agree that a given work is essentially good, one person may react strongly to a particular aspect of the work while another hardly notices it. They can offer contrasting, even conflicting interpretations. They can analyze the artwork and argue their points rationally and passionately, yet still disagree on parts or on the whole.

Nonetheless, A is A. A novel is a specific type of art and has a definite identity. A plot is a particular element of literature and has a specific nature. A given character has specific qualities; he is who he is. And a hero is a hero, with a definite set of characteristics.

In this essay, I will discuss the nature of heroism and use these observations to identify and analyze some of the heroes of great literature.¹ In conclusion, I will offer my personal assessment of who is the greatest.

The Criteria of Heroism

In contrast to villains or “bad guys,” heroes—whether in real life or in fiction—are colloquially referred to as “good guys.” But this raises the question: Good—by what standard? What makes anything good? Is something good because God wills it? Is it good because society deems it so? Is something good for a given individual simply because he feels that it is? Alternatively, is there some fundamental fact of reality by reference to which something can be judged as good or evil?

In regard to that last question, the American novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand argued in the affirmative. A simplified version of her argument is that understanding the nature of good or of value always requires an answer to the question, “Good or of value to whom and for what?” She observed that living things must achieve certain goals in order to sustain their lives, and if they do not, they will die. Plants need water and sunlight. Lions need meat and shade. Man needs values such as food, water, shelter, and freedom. Values derive from the requirements of an organism’s life.

In a lifeless world, there would be no values: no good, no evil. After all, good or evil to whom, and for what? If we grind a rock (or any inanimate object) to dust, what has it lost that it previously strove to maintain? Nothing. A rock takes no steps to maintain its rock form as distinct from a pile of dust particles—nor does it take steps to maintain or sustain anything at all. Living organisms, on the other hand, engage in processes to sustain their lives. Plants, for example, grow their leaves toward the sun to engage in photosynthesis to support their lives. If we kill the plant, it has lost something that it took steps to sustain—its life. The particular form or shape of a rock is of no value to the rock, nor is the rock’s existence of value to it. But an organism’s life is a value to the organism—and its life is the precondition and the ultimate goal of all of its other values.

By means of such observations (the foregoing is merely an indication), Ayn Rand demonstrated that man’s life is the standard of moral value. By man’s life, Rand meant the life proper to a rational being, a being who survives most fundamentally by means of his rational faculty. As Rand put it, “that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.”²

One characteristic of a hero is that he acts in alignment with this conception of morality (whether implicitly or explicitly). Such a man (or woman) takes action in support of his or her life-serving values, values that can and often do include other people who are important to him. A hero holds and pursues values that are objectively life promoting. George Washington is an excellent real-life example, because the liberty for which he fought was an enormously important value to him and to others about whom he cared, including his family, friends, and fellow Americans.

A second characteristic of many heroes, including those discussed in this essay, is that they demonstrate superlative ability, whether intellectual, physical, or both. A classic example is Sherlock Holmes, whose intellectual abilities enable him to solve crimes, apprehend murderers, and protect innocent lives in extraordinary ways.

A third characteristic that distinguishes heroes is the way in which they face impediments and/or antagonists blocking their paths. The achievement of noteworthy goals often requires substantial effort to overcome difficulties. For example, Thomas Edison exerted copious amounts of mental and physical effort over a period of years in his quest to invent an incandescent electric light. He is a prime example of the perseverance often necessary to unlock nature’s secrets and invent life-enhancing values.

Heroes often face serious dangers, too. The case of the great Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton is an excellent example here. When his ship, Endurance, was crushed in ice, his initial goal of traversing the Antarctic was doomed. He and his crew were hundreds of miles from civilization in a brutally cold, inhospitable environment. To survive, he and a small number of his men confronted raging seas, bitter cold, and towering peaks to reach a distant South American whaling station. Shackleton then returned for the rest of his crew.

Heroes at times also must face dangerous antagonism proceeding from society, such as in the case of Socrates. He was charged with corrupting the youth and required either to recant or face execution. He chose to die at the hands of his fellow Athenians rather than relinquish his moral principles.

In short, heroes are dauntless in the face of arduous struggle or grievous threat. They may express this quality in the form of pronounced perseverance, à la Edison, or unremitting courage in the face of danger or even death, as with Shackleton and Socrates. The key point is: Whether a hero confronts intractable impediments, grave danger, or both, he remains undeterred. As Shackleton tersely put it, “Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.”³

A fourth characteristic of a hero is that he achieves victory in some form. Some heroes triumph both morally and practically; others achieve victory solely in a moral sense. Because living a life proper to man and/or protecting such life is the goal of any hero, triumph in both moral and practical form is greatly preferred. But a lack of practical success does not necessarily negate heroism. Whereas Washington remained true to his principles and led his troops to victory, achieving both a moral and a practical triumph, Socrates stood tall, remaining true to his principles and achieving a profound moral triumph, which cost him his life. Yet both men are heroes.

Regarding specifically literary heroes, another distinction is relevant to our analysis. In literature there are fantasy heroes as well as realistic heroes. For example, Gandalf in J. R. R. Tolkien’s superb Lord of the Rings trilogy is undoubtedly a towering hero, but his power is largely wizardry—and he (and the other heroes) confront sundry monsters, evil wizards, and the like. Gandalf’s heroism is distinct from that of, say, Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. In defending an innocent black man in the midst of the vile prejudices of the Jim Crow–dominated South, Finch struggles against realistic opposition—opposition consistent with the laws of nature. He faces the types of difficulties that readers might face in their own lives. Finch—and realistic heroes more broadly—can teach and inspire us in ways that fantastical heroes cannot. Because of this, realistic heroes deserve special consideration and credit. All other things being equal, a realistic hero is more heroic than a fantastical one.

These are the criteria of heroism that we’ll be working with in this essay. Let us now apply them to identify and evaluate some great literary characters.

Some of Literature’s Great Heroes

Who are the great heroes in literature? Here, arranged chronologically (in the order of the historic periods in which their stories take place), are five whom I regard as among the greatest: (1) Odysseus from Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, (2) Cyrano de Bergerac from Edmond Rostand’s eponymous play, (3) Doctor Thomas Stockmann from Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People, (4) Shane from Jack Schaefer’s novel of that name, and (5) Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead.⁴

As a preliminary, we need to answer several questions about each story: (1) What is the hero’s goal? (2) Who or what stands in his way? (3) What are the nature and resolution of the resulting conflict?

In the case of Odysseus, his goal is clear: After spending ten years engaged in unremitting warfare at Troy, Odysseus simply seeks to return home to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, whom he’s never met. Who or what stands in his way? Virtually every obstacle and antagonist conceivable in the ancient world: gods, goddesses, witches, monsters, storms, and men. The ensuing conflict, pitting a brilliant, powerful, determined man against every possible foe and impediment, makes for a compulsive read that is widely considered the greatest adventure story ever told.

Here’s a brief synopsis: After achieving victory at Troy, Odysseus and his men decamp, only to be subsequently imprisoned in a cave on the island of one-eyed monsters, the Cyclops. One of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, eats some of Odysseus’s men and intends, in time, to devour the rest. Odysseus devises a plan by which he and his companions put out Polyphemus’s eye and escape the cave by clinging to the bellies of the monster’s livestock.

When fleeing, Odysseus, generally cunning and wise, miscalculates: He ignores the pleas of his men and foolishly taunts the Cyclops.

But when we had cut through the sea to twice the previous distance,
again I started to call to Cyclops, but my friends about me
checked me, first one then another speaking, trying to soothe me:
“Hard one, why are you trying once more to stir up this savage
man, who just now threw his missile into the sea, forcing
our ship to the land again, and we thought once more we were finished;
and if he had heard a voice or any one of us speaking,
he would have broken all our heads and our ship’s timbers
with a cast of a great jagged stone, so strong is his throwing.”
So they spoke, but could not persuade the great heart in me,
but once again in the anger of my heart I cried to him:
“Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks of you who it was
that inflicted upon your eye this shameful blinding,
tell him that you were blinded by Odysseus, sacker of cities.
Laertes is his father, and he makes his home in Ithaka.”⁵

In retaliation, Polyphemus calls upon his father, Poseidon, to avenge him—and the god of the sea does so by plaguing Odysseus and his crew throughout their voyage, almost drowning the hero on one occasion by means of a raging storm. By his ill-advised boasting, Odysseus adds to the litany of woes he must endure.

Among many other obstacles, Odysseus is captured by the witch Circe, who transforms some of his men into swine. Later, the hero outwits the perfidious Sirens. He stuffs his sailors’ ears with wax so that they are unable to hear the alluring song whose beauty drives men to throw themselves into the sea in pursuit of it, only to drown. Odysseus also orders his men to tie him to the ship’s mast and gives them strict instructions not to release him, no matter his strenuous importuning, until they are safely out of earshot of the Sirens. Thus, he’s the only man ever to hear and survive the sea nymphs’ seductive song.

Odysseus is later apprehended by the beautiful goddess Kalypso, who offers him her love and a chance at immortality—if he remains with her and abandons Penelope. When he finally arrives home in Ithaka, penniless and alone, he learns that he must kill the one hundred plundering suitors who seek to marry his wife and thereby steal his throne, who refuse to leave, who feast on his crops and livestock, and who attempt to murder Telemachus. Against all, Odysseus prevails and is reunited with his wife and son.

Now consider the case of Cyrano de Bergerac. His goal is to win the love of the beautiful Roxane. Standing in Cyrano’s way is his fear of rejection, rendered especially likely by his jutting nose. In addition, he wrestles with his own misguided sense of honor.

The story’s mainline struggle rendered briefly is: Cyrano, a gifted soldier, swordsman, poet, and playwright, and Christian, a young and handsome soldier under Cyrano’s protection, both love the beautiful and intellectual Roxane. Le Comte de Guiche, a scheming aristocrat and ranking officer in the French army, also desires her. Christian, loyal and sincere but too unintellectual to woo Roxane with his own words, turns for help to the unsightly Cyrano. Cyrano agrees to write love letters to Roxane and allow Christian to pass them off as his own. Roxane, believing it is Christian’s soul in the letters, falls in love and agrees to marry him. When de Guiche learns that Roxane has wed, he exacts his revenge by dragging off to war with Spain the regiment in which both Cyrano and Christian serve. De Guiche informs Cyrano that the marriage will not be consummated that night, and Cyrano responds that somehow the news fails to disturb him.

From the front, Cyrano continues to compose impassioned letters to Roxane. She, drawn by them, travels to the French lines, where she tells Christian she has fallen in love with his soul and would love him even if he were ugly. Christian, convinced she is in love with Cyrano, repeats to him her words, pleads with Cyrano to tell her the truth, and, distraught, rushes into battle and is killed. In honor of his friend’s memory, Cyrano steadfastly refuses to divulge to Roxane the truth regarding both the letters and his own love for her.

Simultaneously, Cyrano writes brilliant plays, which, to be performed, require the patronage of powerful political figures. But Cyrano is far too independent to curry the requisite favor. A friend encourages him to compromise, but Cyrano replies in part:

To sing, to laugh, to dream,
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with an eye to see things as they are,
A voice that means manhood—to cock my hat
Where I choose—At a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight—or write. To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne—
Never to make a line I have not heard
in my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say: My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own.”⁶

In the end, his outspoken defiance of arbitrary authority and his uncompromising loyalty to his own soul provoke his cowardly foes to murder him. He dies a man who has achieved none of his practical goals, but one who has lived in inviolable consonance with his code of honor.

A third hero is Dr. Thomas Stockmann from Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. His goal is to prevent people getting sick from the contaminated spa in his town. His antagonists include virtually everyone in his community—business leaders, the mayor, the press, the overwhelming majority of the townspeople, and even family members. The fundamental conflict of the play is: A medical man stands on his own knowledge and conscience against everyone in his community.

The story, succinctly rendered, is: The townspeople believe that the spa—the basis of the local economy—which has been closed to cleanse its tainted waters, is now sufficiently unpolluted to reopen. Thomas Stockmann, an MD and medical examiner of the baths, concludes from the results of tests that the spa waters require further cleansing to be safe. Almost the entire town rises in fury against him. He is fired as medical examiner. His daughter is released from her job as a teacher. He is denounced by journalists who were once his friends. His sons are assaulted at school. The windows of his home are smashed. He is branded “an enemy of the people” by the community, which heaps unrelenting opprobrium upon him.

Befitting a man of medicine, he stands firm in support of the truth and the health of future spa patrons. He stands on principle, virtually alone, against an entire community. His wife, although steadfastly loyal to him, is shocked and distraught. At play’s end, the family discusses its future in the town.

Mrs. Stockmann: “As long as they are not the wolves that have hunted you down, Thomas.”

Dr. Stockmann: “Are you utterly mad, Katherine? Hunt me down? Now, when I’m the strongest man in town!”

Mrs. Stockmann: “The strongest—now?”

Dr. Stockmann: “Yes, I might go farther and say that now I’m one of the strongest men in the whole world.”

Morten [his son]: “You mean it?”

Dr. Stockmann (lowering his voice): “Shh, don’t talk about it yet—but I’ve made a great discovery.”

Mrs. Stockmann: “What, again?”

Dr. Stockmann: “Yes, why not?” (Gathers them around him and speaks confidentially.) “And the essence of it, you see, is that the strongest man in the world is the one who stands most alone.”

Mrs. Stockmann (smiling and shaking her head): “Oh, Thomas, Thomas—”

Petra [his daughter] (buoyantly gripping his hands): “Father!”⁷

Curtain.

Ibsen does not reveal the outcome of this conflict, but—given that Stockmann is “the strongest man in the world”—his audience can discern it.

Another towering hero is Shane, the dominant figure in the Western story by Jack Schaefer. Shane seeks to retire from gunfighting and lead a life of peace. But he also desires to keep his dearest friend, Joe Starrett, safe. As the tale unfolds, these two goals come into conflict.

Briefly, Shane’s story is as follows: In the 1880s, Shane, a mysterious black-garbed stranger, rides into a Wyoming valley that is on the verge of range war. Farmers and ranchers contend over use of the land and access to valuable streams. Fletcher, a local cattle baron, wrested control of the valley from primitive tribes in a savage battle years earlier. Now he seeks to oust a band of farmers who have since settled land he believes is his. Joe Starrett, leader of the farmers, hires Shane to help out on the farm. Starrett, his wife, Marian, and their young son, Bobby, are honest, hard-working, productive people. Shane forms an immediate bond with each of them.

Through various skirmishes, tension builds between farmers and ranchers until Fletcher triggers an explosion. He hires a gunfighter, Stark Wilson, who kills one of Starrett’s allies. Fletcher and his hired gun ride to the Starrett ranch. The cattle baron offers to buy the farm and hire both Starrett and Shane, but, he says, the rest of the farmers must go. He gives Starrett until that night to consider it. Starrett plans to refuse Fletcher’s offer—but Shane knows that Wilson will then kill him. Shane desperately wants to give up gunfighting—but he cannot let Starrett be killed, Marian widowed, and Bobby devastated. He rides into town, confronts Wilson and Fletcher and, in a fair fight, kills both.

Jack Schaefer vividly shows the conflict’s bittersweet irony: Shane kills the would-be murderers of Joe Starrett, thereby saving the family. He overcomes the external foe—but by that fact, he returns to gunfighting, thereby abandoning his goal of leading a peaceful life. Further, he saves the Starrett family only to lose them in another way. Because he wants Bobby to grow up worshipping his peaceful and productive father—not a gunfighter—he knows he must leave the family forever and does. The very act of protective violence that saves the Starrett family necessarily alienates Shane from them.

According to the author’s determinist philosophy, Shane is a gunfighter by nature; it is inherently, inescapably part of his identity. He tells Bobby, who confronts him tearfully and pleads with him to stay:

A man is what he is, Bob, and there’s no breaking the mold. I tried that and I’ve lost. . . . There’s no going back from a killing. Right or wrong, the brand sticks and there’s no going back. It’s up to you now. Go home to your mother and father. Grow strong and straight and take care of them. Both of them. . . . There’s only one thing more I can do for them now.⁸

Shane rides into the night, out of the valley, and into the heart of the great American West. Joe, Marian, and Bobby are now safe. The farmers’ rights are protected.

The final hero in this brief survey is Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead. Roark, an independent, brilliantly innovative architect, is pursuing a fulfilling career in his field. He knows he can achieve this only by designing buildings on his own terms, but he is opposed by all manner of people who despise or envy his independence. The author terms Roark’s foes “second-handers”—people who do not conduct their lives in accordance with their own judgment (i.e., living first-handedly) but who, in one form or another, permit their lives to be dominated by the opinions of others (living second-handedly).

The story’s fundamental conflict is: A revolutionary architect remains true to his principles despite antagonism from a multitude of foes who reject his designs and his independence in both thought and action.

Roark is expelled from architectural school because he refuses to design buildings in accordance with the time-honored architectural traditions recognized and endorsed by his professors. Instead, he designs in a style that is totally his own, unique and devoid of superfluity. He seeks out and works for Henry Cameron, once a successful and innovative architect, now an embittered alcoholic who is widely scorned. In time, Roark starts his own architectural firm and suffers similar rejection. Some oppose Roark for not conforming his designs to the popular trends of the day, others for not adopting the styles of the past. Roark’s greatest foe is a power-lusting socialist who recognizes independent thinkers as his gravest threat. Even Roark’s lover, Dominique Francon, attempts to end his career. Her rationale is that a society of sheep-like mediocrities does not deserve his genius and should not be given the opportunity to reject him—as they did Henry Cameron.

But Roark keeps pressing forward. He finds other independent thinkers who recognize the brilliance of his work, who hire him, and who defend him.

In a climactic courtroom scene, he is tried for dynamiting a state-owned building that he designed but that two inferior architects—both government lackeys—indiscriminately adulterated. He articulates a profound defense of independent thinkers against every form of repression. He states in part:

Man cannot survive except through his mind. . . . His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs . . . no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. . . . But the mind is an attribute of the individual. . . . This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator.⁹

The jury acquits Roark. A businessman purchases the dynamited building and hires Roark to rebuild it exactly as he designed it. Gail Wynand, the brilliant but power-seeking creator of a journalistic empire, hires Roark to build the world’s tallest skyscraper. Dominique now understands that a society of abject followers cannot stop a creative genius and the other independent minds who recognize and hire him; finally, she is ready to marry Roark. Thus, Roark becomes a commercial success on his own terms and marries the woman he loves.

In short, Roark wins the battle and gets the girl. In an important sense, he is similar to Odysseus: He triumphs over every foe and obstacle that the modern world can hurl at an independent thinker—in a way that is analogous to Odysseus’s heroic victory over every antagonist of the ancient world.

Analyzing the Heroes and Their Stories

Before we can assess the relative stature of these remarkable characters, we need further information about their lives, their deeds, their stories. Beginning with The Odyssey, let’s dig deeper into each story’s plot, theme, and hero.

In The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand originated the concept of “plot-theme,” which she defined as “the central conflict or ‘situation’ of a story. . . . The theme of a novel is the core of its abstract meaning—the plot-theme is the core of its events.”¹⁰

The core of events composing The Odyssey is: The struggle of a cunning warrior against monsters, men, and gods to return home to his wife and son. The theme of the story is trickier to identify, as several important principles are dramatized in the epic. One such principle, illustrated by Odysseus’s ill-advised boasting to Polyphemus and the resultant punishment at the hands of Poseidon, is a point that would be thoroughly familiar to Homer’s audience: Hubris is unwise. Physically or verbally assailing the gods, their families, or their favorites is sure to invite wrath. This is a prevalent idea throughout Greek mythology, and it is an undeniable force in this poem—but it involves merely one, admittedly potent, aspect of the antagonism that Odysseus faces, and does not, as a theme must, capture the entirety of the story’s abstract meaning.

An abstract theme is often difficult to discern, especially in an adventure story that features so many mythic elements. So let’s find it inductively by examining some of the story’s most important events. First, consider a key part of the backstory: Odysseus’s cunning strategy of the Trojan horse. After ten years of warfare, the Greeks finally gain access to Troy by pretending to decamp and leaving outside its walls a giant wooden horse, ostensibly a peace offering to Athena. However, the horse is filled with warriors, including Odysseus himself. Once the horse is brought inside the walls of Troy, the warriors burst out and finally capture the city. Second, Odysseus outwits Polyphemus by getting him drunk and putting out his eye. He and his men then escape the cave by clinging to the bellies of the giant’s oversized livestock. Third, he outsmarts the Sirens, hears their song, and lives to tell the tale. Fourth, he outthinks his wife’s one hundred suitors by disguising himself as a beggar, thereby gaining both access to his weapons and the benefit of surprise. Further, Homer repeatedly refers to his hero as wily Odysseus or cunning Odysseus. Finally, Athena, goddess of civilization, favors Odysseus above all other warriors because of his superlative brainpower.

Odysseus’s most salient heroic trait is his cunning intelligence. The theme of The Odyssey is the triumph of intelligence over every possible obstacle.

In Cyrano de Bergerac, the plot-theme is: An ugly man composes beautiful love letters for a friend to a woman they both love. But again, the theme is more difficult to discern because of the story’s layered richness, its textured integration of diverse elements. For one thing, Rostand dramatizes the baneful consequences of duplicity, regardless of how nobly conceived. Cyrano, after all, lives his entire adult life in the lonely absence of the woman he loves. Roxane is similarly deprived of romance with the man she treasures, living out her days in a convent, where she realizes, heartbreakingly, that “I never loved but one man in my life, And I have lost him—twice.”¹¹ And although Cyrano’s ruse at first seems to help Christian, Christian dies shortly thereafter and never makes love to Roxane.

An even more pronounced element of the play, coursing through its every line with singing vitality, is the idea that romantic love reigns supreme among values. This play is, in part, a love poem to love itself—perhaps the most beautiful and moving ever composed. Hence, the bittersweet irony that no love ever gets made—that all three members of the impassioned love triangle live and die as virgins.

But the play fundamentally is about a different although related point. The idea that integrates all of the story’s major elements—Cyrano’s undying loyalty to Roxane, his refusal to stain Christian’s memory, his haughty rejection of truckling for aristocratic patronage, and his fearless willingness to confront perfidious foes—is the inviolable integrity of its titular character. The theme of Cyrano de Bergerac is the moral triumph of uncompromised integrity despite practical failure. Cyrano’s most salient heroic trait is his enduring refusal to compromise his soul.

The plot-theme of An Enemy of the People is the struggle of a doctor against his community to restore the purity of the spa waters upon which the town’s economy depends. The play’s theme is the power of an individual to stand up for truth, however unpopular. Thomas Stockmann’s most prominent heroic characteristic is his fierce independence, his commitment to stand alone against an outraged society in support of a life-saving truth.

Shane is set on the frontier, bereft of any official, state-backed agents of law enforcement. To preserve innocent lives, Shane, although a private citizen, must in effect become the unofficial vehicle of a proper legal system. The plot-theme of the novel is the desperate alternative of a gunfighter between relinquishing a life of violence and saving the innocent family he loves. However, in the author’s view, Shane does not have a choice. He was born to be a noble warrior. That is the unbreakable “mold” in which he was cast. The determinist theme that Jack Schaefer projects is the inescapability of a man’s fate or destiny. Shane is undoubtedly a discerning man of great moral probity. But his most heroic trait is his fighting ability, with fists or guns, in service of the good.

In The Fountainhead, Howard Roark is confronted by nonviolent but supremely dangerous antagonists. The novel’s plot-theme is the struggle of a brilliant architect to build in accordance with his revolutionary vision—while being opposed by virtually all of society. The novel’s theme is individualism versus collectivism, not in politics but in man’s soul. Observe that the deepest level of conflict in this story is psychological. That is, it is about the way men use their minds—the struggle between those who think for themselves and thus function independently and those who expect others to think for them, the cognitive dependents, who, in one form or another, choose to let others dominate their lives.

Roark’s most heroic trait, the one characteristic even more pronounced than his genius, is his unwavering commitment to his own judgment, not only in his work, but also in every area of life. For instance, two of Roark’s most trusted friends warn him against Gail Wynand, publisher of filthy tabloids. But, despite Wynand’s moral failings, Roark perceives immense good in him, and the two become close friends.

Also consider that like Roark, Cameron was a revolutionary designer who steadfastly refused to compromise his ideals. But, unlike Roark, society’s rejection rankled in his soul. The pain embittered him, and he became an irascible curmudgeon who angrily insulted those who opposed his vision. Cameron allowed such opposition to undermine his career—and his self-esteem. By contrast, consider what Roark tells Dominique when she agonizes over the destruction of his masterpiece, the Stoddard Temple: “I’m not capable of suffering completely. I never have. It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it’s not really pain. You mustn’t look like that.” She asks, “Where does it stop?” Roark responds, “Where I can think of nothing and feel nothing except that I designed that temple. I built it. Nothing else can seem very important.”¹²

For Roark, human-wrought destruction of his building is akin to natural destruction of it. Whether it is leveled by a wrecking ball or an earthquake, the pain proceeds exclusively from the demise of his creation. That many regard him as a wretch, a monster, or an abysmal failure has no effect on his self-appraisal, because his self-esteem is genuine, self-initiated and self-sustained. It is not other-initiated or other-sustained. It is based on his thinking, his work, and, above all, his steadfast devotion to doing what he knows is right.

Applying the Criteria of Heroism

Observe that these heroes (1) pursue life-affirming values, (2) possess superlative ability (intellectual, physical, or both), (3) persevere against powerful opposition and/or antagonism, and (4) achieve at least moral victory.

We can now compare, contrast, and assess our champions, keeping in mind that these are all giants of heroism.

We will start with Odysseus.

The purpose animating him in this story is his drive to get home to his wife and family, surely a major value in his life. Odysseus faces every type of opposition imaginable in the ancient world, and he is dauntless in the face of all of it—nothing short of death will deter his homeward course. He integrates both intellectual and martial ability, and he conquers every antagonist he faces.

Nonetheless, there is a major mitigating factor: Much of the antagonism Odysseus faces is mythic—gods and goddesses, monsters, witches, malevolent sea nymphs, and the like. It is certainly true that we must grant an author his historic and cultural frame of reference and acknowledge that, in Homer’s day, such opponents were considered plausible. Today, however, we know that such beings are fictitious.

Odysseus’s abilities are realistic: He is a brilliant and formidable warrior, and he overcomes hazardous storms, unfavorable winds, and treacherous men. However, the generous dosage of mythic elements in the story, including and especially among the antagonists, diminishes Odysseus’s status as a realistic hero.

It would be fascinating to read a modern version of an Odysseus-like hero who, à la Magellan, explored the uncharted oceans and unknown lands of the world. In such a story, the hero would be confronted not by gods, monsters, witches, and pernicious mermaids. Rather, he would face devilishly cunning, violent men at his various landfalls; insubordinate and mutinous crew members; a perfidious government for whom he ostensibly sails; and hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, and tidal waves. That would be a believable story, filled exclusively with realistic antagonists and conflicts. Odysseus would be presented as the type of hero we could aspire to emulate, and this would boost his heroic stature. Despite being a mighty champion, Odysseus is not, in my view, the greatest literary hero, because too many of his trials and tribulations are impossible.

Cyrano also meets all of the criteria of heroism. The key practical value to which he aspires is romantic love with a beautiful and intellectual woman. He faces numerous obstacles—his own shame of his nose, his understandable fear of rejection based on it, and, subsequently, his desire to honor Christian’s memory. In his career as both a writer and soldier, Cyrano resolutely confronts enemy forces, aristocratic grandees, their treacherous underlings, and more. He doesn’t always win in practice, but he often does in spirit, consistently refusing to bend a knee in supplication to authority. His ability, like Odysseus’s, is a glorious integration of the intellectual and the physical. For example, seemingly without effort, he composes an original poem while dueling and, at the composition’s high point, thrusts home his sword, wounding his foe at will. He remains dedicated to his principles through almost every crisis, battle, triumph, and loss.

But in Cyrano’s case, too, mitigating factors are in play. Why, after all, in one of the greatest odes to romantic love ever penned, does no love ever get made? Fundamentally, the reason is that Cyrano never tells Roxane the full truth. It is certainly understandable that he believes Roxane, the most beautiful of women, could never love a physically repulsive man. Nevertheless, for Cyrano to be fully true to his values, both intellectually and physically, he would have to muster the courage—as he has in every other arena of his life—to man up, make the effort, and bear the consequences, painful though they might be. Christian is right, in the moments before his death, when he says that Roxane loves Cyrano’s soul. He is right when he tells his dear friend that he should reveal the full truth. Alas, Cyrano heeds him not. Cyrano’s lack of courage regarding this central value of his life marks him as a seriously flawed hero—and leads to years of wistfully unrelieved loneliness, both for himself and for Roxane. Thus, despite his manifest virtues, he is not the greatest of our heroes.

Doctor Stockmann, like Odysseus, demonstrates the qualities befitting an exalted hero. He demands the full purification of the spa waters and stands up for the health of its future patrons, a substantial life-supporting value. He upholds rational principles in the face of opposition from nearly everyone in his town and is utterly undeterred by efforts to silence him. In so doing, he achieves moral victory.

But herein lies the problem: Ibsen chooses not to show us Armageddon. Presumably, a climactic showdown, featuring on one side “one of the strongest men in the whole world,” would conclude in favor of the good. But, unlike in Shane, where the hero faces and routs his antagonists in forthright confrontation, that final showdown in An Enemy of the People never happens. There is no doubt that Thomas Stockmann is an inspiring hero. But to gain a full appreciation of his stature, we need to view him in a final climactic confrontation with the story’s antagonists. In the absence of this, we have insufficient evidence to draw a conclusive judgment regarding Stockmann’s heroic stature.

Shane, too, meets all of the criteria of heroism. He seeks to protect the noblest people in the valley, and, in so doing, faces its most dangerous antagonists. His physical prowess, be it with fists or guns, is magnificent. He has the courage to risk death in support of his values—and he is victorious.

But two issues undermine Shane. One problem is no fault of his own; it is the determinist philosophy of the author. According to the writer’s explicit wording, Shane has no choice in the matter of defending the Starrett family. He is what he is—and can be nothing else. Were that true, Shane would be akin to a force of nature that, like a mighty storm or onrushing flood, sweeps away the villains, leaving the protagonists untouched. Such an event, although fortuitously beneficent, is not a volitional act and consequently has no moral standing. Actions that are not volitional cannot be heroic. Schaefer’s determinism undermines Shane’s heroism. Shane is recognizable as a powerful hero if and only if readers repudiate the author’s philosophy and acknowledge Shane as a man with free will who could have done otherwise, a man who chooses to risk his life in service of the good.

The other problem is that Shane’s abilities are primarily physical. Both history and current events show that fighting ability is sometimes necessary to protect innocent people from predators. But human intelligence is the most powerful force on earth—as Odysseus’s story demonstrates. And although Shane is an undeniably perceptive individual, his brainpower is not his most salient weapon. What if, for example, Shane lived in a free country whose intellectual, moral, and political leaders—and their millions of supporters—edged the nation toward dictatorship? What would Shane do to protect the freedom and the nation he loved against such a malignant philosophy and its proponents? What could he do in a war of ideas? It would take immense competence in a field far more potent than gunfighting to repel or even retard the advance of such a life-crushing moral-political creed.

Turning to The Fountainhead, what is the status of Howard Roark’s heroism? He relentlessly pursues a career he loves, and he is, as the title suggests, a fountainhead of both architectural creativity and moral ideals—a potently life-serving combination. He is confronted by every type of realistic foe an innovative thinker might face, including the devious villain Ellsworth Toohey, who is dead set on wrecking Roark’s career and breaking his spirit. Roark’s mental capacities and strength of character leave him undeterred by the many forces arrayed against him. His heroism lies fundamentally in a combination of his genius and his virtue. He is the greatest mind in the story, indeed, in all of the stories considered in this essay. And he is a paragon of independence and perseverance. Consequently, his victory is decisive. He wins his climactic court case, and in the process, routs Toohey. He upholds his architectural and moral principles and in so doing, gains a respectful hearing for them. He designs and builds innovative structures and, in time, achieves commercial success on his own terms. He marries Dominique Francon, the love of his life. In sum, he achieves both moral and practical victory in every arena of life.

Roark confronts the most vicious evil in history: collectivism. In The Fountainhead, this ideology is personified most fully in Ellsworth Toohey, a 20th-century Marxist intellectual. Toohey is a conniving power luster at both the personal and political levels. He plots to impose a communist dictatorship on the United States—that is, the political system responsible for murdering roughly one hundred million innocent civilians in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere.¹³ Toohey is a vivid embodiment of this maleficent philosophy—and he is, in my judgment, the greatest villain in literature.

Perhaps his leading contender is Iago—from Shakespeare’s superb play Othello—who is also a master schemer. Although here, Shakespeare brilliantly dramatizes the noxious impulse of envy—hatred of the good for being the good—Iago’s dastardly plot is limited to the destruction of a single great man: Othello. Iago is cunning without being intelligent. His essentially unintellectual mind can conceive of but a flimsy scheme involving the handkerchief of Othello’s wife and no wider destructive aspirations. By contrast, Toohey is a conniving modernist intellectual, wielding a full philosophic system and intent on destroying not merely a great man, but the good as such.

Notice the calculated evil of Toohey’s schemes. For example, unable to prevent Roark’s growing fame, he, in effect, transforms it to infamy by persuading a cringing follower, Hopton Stoddard, to hire Roark to build a Temple of the Human Spirit. Toohey knows that Roark’s design will be a masterfully original perspective on holy sites, unlike any religious structure ever conceived. Toohey then leverages Roark’s brilliant originality against him, howling that Roark is an enemy of religion. This retards Roark’s progress for several years.

Nevertheless, Roark triumphs fully over both the most envy-ridden, destructive philosophy in history and its incarnation, Toohey, because he possesses and deploys the most potent unity of forces that a man can cultivate in himself: genius, ability, and unwavering moral character.

Roark comprehends what other intelligent men do not—that, in a free country, the forces of evil are essentially powerless against him. In the communist dictatorship that Toohey seeks, he, as intellectual adviser behind the throne, could and would have Roark liquidated. But in the semi-free America of the 1920s and 1930s, Roark is at liberty to ignore Toohey’s depredations, free to design as he will, free to reach and work with other independent minds who recognize the superlative values he offers. Roark, an intellectual giant, overcomes Toohey and Marxist philosophy in a way that Shane could not.

Howard Roark’s victory over Ellsworth Toohey presages, in fiction and in microcosm, certain historic, real-life victories of individualism over collectivism: America and its allies emerged victorious first over National Socialism in the cauldron of World War II—and then over Soviet Communism in the Cold War.

Of all of these mighty heroes, Howard Roark is the colossus. He is a fount of architectural ingenuity and a model of moral integrity, a hero capable of inspiring and enlightening readers in a way that none of the other heroes discussed here can. He perseveres against virtually everyone, overcomes the most dangerous and depraved villain in literature, and triumphs in life, career, and love.

About Andrew Bernstein

Andrew Bernstein holds a PhD in philosophy from the Graduate School of the City University of New York and taught philosophy for many years at SUNY Purchase. He is the author of Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights (2010), Capitalist Solutions (2011), and, most recently, Heroes, Legends, Champions: Why Heroism Matters (2020).

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