Strange Visitor from another Polis: A Comparison of National Heroes in Athenian Tragedy and American Comics

Abstract

This study will compare the national heroes from ancient Athens and the modern United States in order to shed light on why and how particular characters become symbols of a nation. While, to some extent, national heroes exhibit the traits of idealized citizens, they are also the product of their own histories within their literary genres. Thus, a hero is not simply a representation of a culture’s ideal, but a narrative between those ideals, the character, and the genre. This is further complicated by the evolving, and often conflicted, values of a society and, in particular, the beliefs of the authors of the works. The characters under discussion will be Theseus, in the Athenian tragedy of Euripides and Sophocles, and Superman and Wonder Woman in the superhero comics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. By comparing these characters who, it will be argued, share a similar position within their societies and, yet, exist in very different cultures and genres, I wish to find common threads which lend themselves to creating a national symbol.