Heroes and Heroines: Analyzing Character Traits
I am interested in using literary works that promote peace and justice, especially through the main characters. As teachers we build bridges to connect our students with content, skills, and strength of character. We seek out manners of freedom, justice, solidarity, tolerance, peace, and understanding, further promoting respect for the values of cultural identities especially through quality and authentic literature. For example, I will be using Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace, the story by Jen Johnson about Wangari Maathai, and First Day In Grapes, a story by L. King Perez about Chico and his migrant family living in California.
According to Hourihan, the hero story and his adventure is always the same spanning from classic literature such as Odysseus to timeless fables such as Peter Rabbit, and further forward reaching to current computer games. He goes on to say, “The hero story has dominated children’s and young adult literature, passing on the traditional values to each new generation. Most authorities on children’s literature assume that hero tales are unequivocally good for children, as morally and mentally nutritious as apples and wholemeal bread.”14 Even if the hero or heroine start off with selfish goals or poor choices, I am looking for them to overcome these with redeeming qualities and character to promote building peace and seeking justice. I am planning to use the above mentioned literature genres about peace builders and influential people to draw students away from honoring the clever trickster as a role model or hero. Abrams mentions that in his research younger children prefer their favorite character, Bugs Bunny, a trickster whose manipulative and deceiving behavior is how he attains his own selfish goals.15
Some believe the trickster; however, can help with understanding socialization. Abram tells of this importance as he writes,
…it can be argued on behalf of a socialization interpretation that the child uses the trickster genre as a way of mastering developmental tasks. Psychosocially, the tales develop from concern over self-management (five years), to autonomy from parental control (seven-to-nine years), and peer-group relations (ten-to-eleven years); cognitively, they move from gullibility (five-to-seven years) to logical trickery (eight-to-eleven years),16
and perhaps independence and logical thinking. He goes on to say, “Play prepares one for many potential societies, and the trickster prepares the child for many potential revolutions in behavior and manners.”17 The trickster does have its rightful and respected place in literature, and even perhaps in the dualism that Hourihan also points out between the hero and adversary. Students will have a chance to look at character traits for both peace builders and tricksters during lessons and activities included in this unit. We will identify good qualities of tricksters because not all are bad, yet I plan to emphasize the main character’s authentic qualities and practices that lead to seeking peace and social justice beyond oneself and contributing to the greater good as a peace builder.
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