Anantihero (sometimes spelled asanti-hero or two wordsanti hero)[1] oranti-heroine is a main character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such asidealism andmorality.[1] Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that most of the audience considers morally correct, their reasons for doing so may not align with the audience's morality.[2]
Antihero is a literary term that can be understood as standing in opposition to the traditional hero, i.e., one with high social status, well liked by the general populace. Past the surface, scholars have additional requirements for the antihero.
The "Racinian" antihero is defined by three factors. The first is that the antihero is doomed to fail before their adventure begins. The second constitutes the blame of that failure on everyone but themselves. Thirdly, they offer a critique of social morals and reality.[3] To other scholars, an antihero is inherently a hero from a specific point of view, and a villain from another.[4]
Typically, an antihero is the focal point of conflict in a story, whether as the protagonist or as the antagonistic force.[5] This is due to the antihero's engagement in the conflict, typically of their own will, rather than a specific calling to serve the greater good. As such, the antihero focuses on their personal motives first and foremost, with everything else secondary.[6]
An early antihero isHomer'sThersites, since he serves to voice criticism, showcasing an anti-establishment stance.[7] The concept has also been identified in classicalGreek drama,[8]Roman satire, andRenaissance literature[7] such asDon Quixote[8][9] and thepicaresque rogue.[10]
An anti-hero that fits the more contemporary notion of the term is the lower-caste warriorKarna in theMahabharata. Karna is the sixth brother of thePandavas (symbolisinggood), born out of wedlock, and raised by a lower-caste charioteer. He is ridiculed by the Pandavas, but accepted as an excellent warrior by the antagonistDuryodhana, thus becoming a loyal friend to him, eventually fighting on thewrong side of the finaljust war. Karna serves as a critique of the then-society, the protagonists, as well as the idea of the war being worthwhile itself – even if Krishna later justifies it properly.[11]
The term antihero was first used as early as 1714,[12] emerging in works such asRameau's Nephew in the 18th century,[7] and is also used more broadly to coverByronic heroes as well, created by theEnglish poetLord Byron.[13]
LiteraryRomanticism in the 19th century helped popularize new forms of the antihero,[14][15] such as theGothic double.[16] The antihero eventually became an established form of social criticism, a phenomenon often associated with the unnamed protagonist inFyodor Dostoevsky'sNotes from Underground.[7] The antihero emerged as afoil to the traditional heroarchetype, a process thatNorthrop Frye called the fictional "center of gravity".[17] This movement indicated a literary change in heroic ethos from feudal aristocrat to urban democrat, as was the shift from epic to ironic narratives.[17]
Huckleberry Finn (1884) has been called "the first antihero in the American nursery".[18] Charlotte Mullen ofSomerville and Ross'sThe Real Charlotte (1894) has been described as an anti-heroine.[19][20][21]
The antihero became prominent in early 20th-centuryexistentialist works such asFranz Kafka'sThe Metamorphosis (1915),[22]Jean-Paul Sartre'sNausea (1938),[23] andAlbert Camus'sThe Stranger (1942).[24] The protagonist in these works is an indecisive central character who drifts through his life and is marked byboredom,angst, andalienation.[25]
The antihero entered American literature in the 1950s and up to the mid-1960s as an alienated figure, unable to communicate.[26] The American antihero of the 1950s and 1960s was typically more proactive than his French counterpart.[27] The British version of the antihero emerged in the works of the "angry young men" of the 1950s.[8][28] The collective protests ofSixties counterculture saw the solitary antihero gradually eclipsed from fictional prominence,[27] though not without subsequent revivals in literary and cinematic form.[26]During theGolden Age of Television from the 2000s and into early 2020s, antiheroes such asTony Soprano,Gru,Megamind,Jack Bauer,Gregory House,Dexter Morgan,Walter White,Frank Underwood,Don Draper,Neal Caffrey,Nucky Thompson,Jax Teller,Alicia Florrick,Annalise Keating,Selina Meyer andKendall Roy became prominent in the most popular and critically acclaimed TV shows.[29][30][31]
In his essay published in 2020,Postheroic Heroes – A Contemporary Image (German:Postheroische Helden – Ein Zeitbild), GermansociologistUlrich Bröckling examines the simultaneity of heroic and post-heroic role models as an opportunity to explore the place of the heroic in contemporary society.[32] In contemporary art, artists such as the French multimedia artistThomas Liu Le Lann negotiate in his series ofSoft Heroes, in which overburdened, modern and tired Anti Heroes seem to have given up on the world around them.[33][34]
In American mainstream comic books, anti-heroes have become increasingly popular since the 1970s. The comic book version is generally a variation on the formula ofsuperheroes. As Suzana Flores describes it, a comic book antihero is "often psychologically damaged, simultaneously depicted as superior due to his superhuman abilities and inferior due to his impetuousness, irrationality, or lack of thoughtful evaluation." Particularly well-known comic book anti-heroes includeJohn Constantine,Wolverine,Punisher,Marv,Spawn, andDeadpool.[35] These characters have all been adapted into feature films, as well.
A new book explains the link between the rise of antihero protaganists and the unprecedented abundance of great TV (and what Dick Cheney has to do with it).
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