Meursault is unlike any character I’ve met in my reading... so far.  Despite many dramatic differences, Meursault, from Albert Camus’ The Stranger, is a hero.  The interesting aspect of this character is that he is not even human, if we’re basing the judgment on social standards.  He doesn’t cry after his mother dies, he doesn’t care if he and his girlfriend get married, but the main difference between Meursault and other literary heroes is that he kills a man and doesn’t regret it.  

It seems silly to consider this man a hero if he kills other people.  That would be true if I was looking at him from the perspective of the rest of society.  But I’m not.  Throughout The Stranger, Meursault’s story is told through his own eyes.  It may seem that he is immoral but I think his moral compass is just misaligned; he prioritizes different values than what the rest of society expects.  Even though many people dislike him and disagree with him, Meursault is still able to hold his head high and stand sturdy in his beliefs.  After he is convicted of murder, a chaplain visits him and tries to convince him of the existence of God, claiming that “every man [he has] known in [Meursault’s] position has turned to Him” (117).  Meursault acknowledges this and responds that he “just didn’t have the time to interest [himself] in what didn’t interest [him]” (118).  While he is being tried and convicted for the murder he committed, he is asked if he regrets his actions and he claims that he is more annoyed than regretful.  

Yet Meursault is still a hero because he sticks up for his beliefs and as Camus wrote, “he agrees to die for the truth.”  Isn’t that what heroes are?  Heroes are people who stand up for what they believe in and they are willing to die for an idea.  We see this in media today with men and women in service, who are willing to die for justice and freedom, or in The Joker, who is willing to die to send the message that humans are corruptible animals.  Either way, sticking to our values, no matter what, is something we’d like to believe in.  Because Meursault is willing to die than lie, giving into dogma and therefore conforming to society’s expectations, he is a hero… a very complex hero, but a hero nonetheless.

Similar to Prince Hal and the eponymous narrator in The Invisible Man, Stephen, from James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as A Young Man, is a hero to himself by the end of the novel.  Although Stephen is not a hero to other people, he rescues himself from his sinful self and from dogma to become an artist.

At the beginning of the novel, Stephen indulges in sinful thoughts and actions.  When his “eyes, opening from the darkness of desire,” realize that what he has been doing is wrong, soon repents and becomes very involved and aware of his faith.  However, this repentance hinders his imagination.  Stephen finally recognizes the path he has to take to become an individual who “will not serve” to conform to people’s expectations.  This rollercoaster of a road to self-discovery is part of what makes him a hero.  He is able to “encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience” and change his way of looking at the world and is able to use his words to express his individuality and his understanding of the world.

Another aspect of Stephen’s heroism is his fearlessness.  Stephen “[does] not fear to be alone...And [he is] not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake” because he acknowledges that every great artist makes mistakes.  He can’t experience the world without experiencing failures and mistakes.  He “will take the risk” of losing everything he knows to find beauty and create it.  He is able to look at the world and think he can change it with his art.
Stephen is a hero because he saved himself from conforming to society’s expectations of him.  However, Stephen is not a hero because he does not put other people’s needs above his own.  Although Stephen has many characteristics of a hero, like fearlessness and the ability to discover himself, he is not a hero to anyone else but himself.

The eponymous narrator in The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison could be a hero.  By the end of the novel, the narrator is a hero to himself but a could-have-been hero to everyone else.

            He is a hero to himself because he goes on a journey of self-discovery and ends up finding himself as an individual.  He is more than a stereotype because he learns to think, and act, for himself.  He starts off naïve and submissive but then grows to learn that he has to rescue himself from the downward spiral of giving into the stereotypes and prejudices of everyone around him.  He has moments when he only listens to what the Brotherhood tells him, not truly remembering what was important to him.  When he misses the chance to make a difference, he finds himself in a hole, literally, and at the end of the novel, he finally realizes that he has to come back up.  Because of his individuality and self-awareness, he is a hero.

            However, he is not a traditional hero because he does not always put everyone else’s interests before his.  He judges other people, demonstrating the same racism and stereotypes that other people judge him by.  However, he also starts making a difference for the people in Harlem, getting them to think about “social responsibility” and cooperating with everyone, blacks and whites.  This brief moment of heroism, along with his presence in Harlem, vanishes when he starts listening solely to the Brotherhood.  When he comes back, everything is different and he gives in to the changes, until he realizes that he’s had enough of hiding at the end of the novel.  I view his solitude and isolation in the hole as a stage that most heroes go through when they try to understand what they are meant to do. Usually after heroes are through with isolation is when they start living up to their potential.
             Overall, the narrator is a hero to himself but not to other people.  He is a hero to himself because of his individuality.  He does not conform and his ability to think for himself and create his own opinions are what make him heroic