Oral BAC anglais: Mythes et héros

Introduction :

       A hero is a person who is admired for his courage, outstanding achievements or nobles qualities. On the other hand, the myth appears in traditional story, often, it’s an exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing. The notion of myths and heroes is highly ancient because it appears during the Antiquity. In order to structure our oral, we are going to question us if is worth for a hero or a myth to sacrifice his life for a cause ?

     Firstly, we will put forward the link between myths and heroes with the real life.

     Then, we will show them as models for all a generation.

     Finally, we are going to speak about their struggle in most cases to defend their point of view.

I) The link between heroes/myths with the real life

      According to the definition of a myth, it’s a person with superhuman qualities and semi-divine origins. Nevertheless, nowadays, this notion has evolved and a myth refers more to an ordinary man who carries good values like honesty, humility… Consequently, we can draw closer to the notion of myth and hero. So, both of them are linked to the real.

      In fact, as a normal person, Mandela, that we can considered as a hero was often criticized. Firstly, for his extremist actions during his teenage years. Recently, he was still criticized by his ex-wife as we saw in class.

      In fact, we can considered heroes and myths as normal people who did something enough important to be considered as well, as Rosa Park, Martin Luther King or Mandela for example.

II) Myths and heroes : models for all a generation

      Secondly, we are going to put forward heroes and myths as models for all a generation. Thus, they bring good values, it’s an ideal, someone who overcomes obstacles with the example of Hercules, or who changes people’s mind like Barrack Obama.

      In the vast majority of cases, it’s a charismatic person with an ability to gather lots of people as we saw in the movie : « Invictus » especially in the beginning when he left jail and he passed in car in front of a football playground where all the black children cheered him. Nevertheless, a hero as a normal person has also enemies as we saw in the film too.

       Basically, a hero/myth thoroughly engaged in his point of view and he struggles to defend it.

III) The importance of their struggle to defend their point of view.

       Finally, we are going to show the importance of the struggle of a hero and the point of view that he is defending. As a general rule, the success of his point of view is the purpose of a life. Basically, they are defending a fair cause in order to abolish inequalities like Apartheid for Nelson Mandela, segregation for Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

       In order to succeed, myths and heroes are enough determined to sacrifice their life for a cause as Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in jail. The fact of sacrificing your life for a cause seems to bring importance to your struggle. For example, the music : « Biko » from Steve Gabriel pays tribute to the hero Peter Biko who lost his life during his struggle against Apartheid.

       Reportedly, thanks to the numerous struggle of heroes, it impliques progress minded in our society worldwide. Besides, we put forward the importance of sacrificing your life for a cause, as example, we never heard so much about Mandela and his struggle as during the last months of his life.

Conclusion :

       To conclude, first of all, we showed that the notion of myths and heroes has evolved, nowadays they can be considered as normal people. Then, we put forward heroes as models for all a generation with hope of him to change inequalities. Finally, we saw the importance of the struggle for a hero in order to defend his point of view . Consequently, one must admit that it seems to be worth for a hero and myth to sacrifice their life for a cause.

It seems to be obvious enough that we can broaden with the notion : « The idea of progress ».