Myths and heroes : how do myhts and heroes influence the society ?

ANGLAIS: MYTHS AND HEROES

First, I am going to define the notion of myths and heroes. We can say that a myth is an ancient story about gods, heroes and magic, it can be a popular belief or a tradition emboying the ideals and institution of a society or an unfounded or false notion. A heroe is defined as a mythological or legendary figure often endowed with great strength or ability. Moreover it can be a person admired for his achivements, noble qualities and great courage and it is also an object of extreme admiration and devotion, a role model or an icon. To illustrate this notion, I am going to focus on the witches and McCarthyism. We may ask ourselves how do myths and heroes influence the society? In a first part, we will see the history of the witch-hunting and its evolution, in a second part we will see McCarthyism. I will use several documents that we saw in class, the audio about the salem witches, « village of fear », « the crucible », « the Cold War hysteria », the comic by Jonathan Vankin and « The Hollywood blacklist ».

I- The evolution of the witch-hunting ( « The salem witches », « village of fear », « Helen Duncan, Scotland’s Last Witch »)

To begin with, a witch is a person who practices witchcraft. The most popular witches’ story took place in Salem, in the 17th century, in the USA. Betty Paris and her cousin, Abigail Williams, who were puritans, were acccused of witchcraft. These girls started to have strange behaviours which brough attention and people started being frightened by histeria. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba were accused and Tituba confessed and claimed that there were other witches in Salemn because of the torture. As a consequence a wave of paranoia and accusations beggan. (« village of fear ») Reverend Paris saw Betty and Abigail, his daughter and niece dancing like heathen in the forest then Betty fainted that is why people thought they were bewitched. « Village of fear » is a movie that was made during McCarthyism from the play « The Crucible » which was made to denunce this witch-hunting.

Later, in the UK Helen Duncan, a scotish show woman was also accused of witchcraft. Indeed, she could spoke with spirits. During a seance she spoke with a deseased sailor from HMS Barham and revealed that the ship has been sunk in the Mediterranean although the governement did not want this fact to be revealed and was furious. Because they were afraid of what she could reveal, Helen Duncan was charged with being a witch and was sentenced to nine months in London’s Holloway Prison. She remains the last witch and itchcraft was later officially recognised as a religion. (1980 in the US)

II-McCartysism ( the comic, « The Hollywood blacklist »)

Centuries