Today, a hero is viewed as the good guy with strength, bravery, honor, passion, and nobility. Strength, because a hero would not only have physical strength but have good self-control and strong will power. Bravery, the ability to show no fear to the enemy. Honor, being highly regarded and respected by the people for his/her action. Passion, showing true care and devotion as well as commitment leading to radiant talent and skill. And nobility, showing excellence in ones character. These are the qualities that make up a hero, not the ability to fly or the power of invincibility, but inner heroism.
In the book The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, the character Romero is the hero in the story. Romero is a young, and attractive bull-fighter who wins the admiration of his audience through his performance. Romero fights the with pride and style showing no fear to the enemy. Romero was glorified for his character throughout the fiesta, but his amazing skill when handling the fight continued to prove himself. Later in the fiesta, Lady Brett Ashley falls in love with Romero and Romero falls in love with Brett. This relationship seemed to anger Robert Cohn and he lost his control out of jealousy, for this, he intended to confront Romero. In the stand off between Romero and Cohn occurred, Romero was hit to the floor several times because he was no match to Cohn's boxing skills. Even though Romero was continuously knocked to the ground, he picked himself back up every time to stand his ground. Romero showed no fear to Cohn, his enemy, at any time during the battle. Following the fight was yet another battle for Romero, a final match between Romero and the bulls for the fiesta, and he was expected to perform. unfortunately, he was badly bruised and beaten up from the fight with Cohn, so his strength was not quite up to par. Still Romero fought anyway, despite how injured he was. Romero shows loyalty to the fans at the fiesta as well as to himself and his commitments to bull-fighting. During the long and well fought battle between Romero and the bulls Romero came out standing because he continued to get up and fight during his performance. The young and amazingly talented bull-fighter came out the hero. Throughout the many surprising series of events that Romero had experienced towards the end of the fiesta were rough for him but he walked out a hero because he shined brightly of the qualities of bravery, strength, honor, passion, and nobility. Those simular qualities are the ones that make up a hero in today's society. Someone who is willing to stand up for themself and their cause, that's what makes the hero.
If the ability to stand up for one's self makes a hero than one could argue that Lady Brett Ashley proved herself to be a hero as well. In the story, Brett's character is very aggressive and inconsiderate. She is aggressive because she will go after what she wants knowing all the consequences that may come along with them, but she will give it her best effort. She is also inconsiderate in the sense that she cares only about her feelings and not the people she is hurting. That itself is not a heroic trait but the fact that she cares so strongly about her urges enough to chase them is what makes her a hero. Brett caries the mentality that she can have what she wants by going after it and doing what she wants to do. She stands up for herself when Romero wants to have a form of control over her by pushing her to marry him and to grow out her hair. She also stands up for herself When Cohn begins to fall in love and attempt to "woo", and she tells him that she does not love him back, that they are in fact not going to be together. Because of Brett's attitude to stand up for what she believes in doing and she doesn't really care what others think, i would call her a hero in the story.
-Kim Parker
