Examples Of Outlaw Heroes

Heroes are noteworthy parts of history, they stick out and most people if anything can remember the main hero of a story. Especially in today's society, where heroes and heroism can be displayed vividly. In television shows like breaking bad, movies like star wars, or even television news, heroes are often central characters. Some would argue the very idea of a hero is self-interpretive and have debunked official heroes (such as fireman) as just doing their jobs. Yet these heroes, in the face of adversity manage to display courage, bravery and action for a greater good, this allows them such a classification. Authors such as Robert B.Ray,Heather Havrilesky,Tim Layden’s will agree that heroes do exist and have analyzed many of the labels heroes
Civilized life can often be confining, family responsibility, jobs, crippling debt that many want escape from. Ray argues “that the exceptional extent of American outlaw legends suggest an ideological anxiety about civilized life. Often, the anxiety took shape as a romanticizing of the dispossessed, as in the Beat Generation’s cult of the bum, or the characters of Huck and Thoreau, who worked to remain idle, unemployed and unattached”(453). This fear of civilized life is something that either subconsciously or consciously stirred people into the direction of the outlaw hero. It can be said that human beings are at their core wild animals. The domestication of civilized life goes against that natural tendency, causing anxiety for many people. Outlaw characters like Huck who in many ways are unattached are exciting to people, they don’t have many of these civilized life anxieties. One the reasons these novels were widespread is some people desired to be like these Outlaw heroes. Outlaw heroes refused to be tamed and Americans related to
A legal system where people can still be charged for a criminal offence after it’s made legal and a system where government interference with laws have become so pervasive, many laws are deemed irrelevant by society. People like Snowden are improvising and breaking these laws which in many ways has contributed to the rise of the outlaw hero’s. Wilke says “Large numbers just knew the truth about him that he was a hero, that he saved the world by exposing the over-reaching surveillance of the NSA;that he should be honored, protected and deified along with other truth-seeking whistleblowers other Americans”(487). According to the Huffington poll thirty three percent of Americans believed Snowden was a hero. All these law breakers and their outlaw heroes are results of a law system where it’s so easy for people to break the law and become outlaw heroes. The NSA was overreaching and Snowden exposing them was an inevitability, yet he is glorified since he put himself in danger by doing something that even though seems logical and arguably justified, is illegal. It seems that exposing or refusing to follow nonsensical laws can make people outlaw heroes, if so being an outlaw hero is also inevitable outcome for many people. Americans are often truth seekers and