Ignorance does not a hero make

To me, a hero doesn’t have to leap tall buildings in a single bound, doesn’t have to dress up like a bat, doesn’t have to get bitten by a radioactive spider. In my opinion, what constitutes a hero is someone that is willing to relentlessly face fear and make the necessary sacrifices to accomplish their goals. However, by fear and sacrifice I don’t mean having to save an old woman from a burning building or having to create an alter ego. The fears can be as simple (and as prevalent) as not knowing what to do for a living, and a sacrifice can be as simple as giving up fatty foods for a diet. Under this broad definition, anyone from any walk of life can be a hero.

NOT ALL HEROES DRESS UP IN TIGHTS. THEY ARE OFTEN EVERYDAY PEOPLE. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaVjchmX-eY          

OH YEAH, I WENT THERE. ENRIQUE GIVES HIS DEFINITION OF A HERO.

  Despite this encompassing perception, I don’t view Alice as a hero. Sure, one could give example upon example of instances where she threw all caution and inhibition to the wind. She chased after a hind-leg walking, waist coat wearing, talking rabbit. When the rabbit went down the rabbit hole, “down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the word she was to get out again.”[1] Hell, that would freak out a grown man. She voluntarily ingested various substances that altered her height. At first she was slightly apprehensive, but by the end of the book, she was downing cake and drink like they were Flintstone vitamins. She reasoned that “something interesting is sure to happen.”[2] There are even those philosopher types that will say that Alice “encourages us to ‘know thyself’”[3] and “insists upon learning through experience.”[4]

Well, I’m not buying it. In my opinion, Alice was simply a typical seven-year-old girl: curious, dumb, and whiny. Stupidity can often be confused with bravery and heroics, never more so than in Alice in Wonderland. When she went down that rabbit hole, it wasn’t out of courage, but out of sheer inquisitiveness. She had never seen such a rabbit, so she (as ignorant people often do) blindly chased after it, not once thinking about the consequences. Her ostensible bravery is simply a mask for the fact that she is growing “curiouser and curiouser.”[5] The fact that she figured out how to control her size through food and drink was one of the few (perhaps even only) moments of brilliance she had in Wonderland. It is a lonely moment of enlightenment surrounded by a pool of foolishness. Also, while it is true that Alice asked the question “Who in the world am I?”[6], it is a riddle that she never answers. The closest she comes to a solution is saying that she “hardly knows”[7] who she is. Even then, the reason for her identity crisis does not stem some deep self-reflection, but as a result of her “being so many different sizes in a day.”[8] As for that whole discovery learning shpeel? Alice often reverted to asking others, like the Cheshire Cat or the Footman, what she should do. For example, she asks the “which way [she] ought to go from here.”[9] It is only after they gave her infuriatingly useless answers that she makes up her mind.

IN MY OPINION, ALICE OFTEN ACTED BECAUSE SHE WAS NAIVE, NOT HEROIC. 

It is for these reasons that I don’t see Alice as a hero. She behaved probably as any of us would have at her age. It is one thing to knowingly face obstacles (that is heroic), and an entirely different thing to face barriers as a result of one’s own idiocy.

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[1] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 12

[2] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 38

[3] “How Alice Leads/Is a Hero”, E603A Course Anthology, Amber Berchlath, X692A

[4] “How Alice Leads/Is a Hero”, E603A Course Anthology, Amber Berchlath, X692A

[5] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 20

[6] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 23

[7] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 47

[8] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 48

[9] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, pg. 65