The Anti-Hero in Hagiography

Abstract

The author's English summary from the article:

Key words: hero, anti-hero, funktion.

The opposition “hero/anti-hero” is a driving force of a hagiographic text. This is the scheme that is seen in antique tragedy: protagonist-antagonist conflict. The personality of a hero is three-dimensional: heart, soul and body; the anti-hero has only one beginning – the body. ThereforSe, the anti-hero represents not personality but a force, power, substantivized adjective. However, that power is an illusion. If the anti-hero had a soul, this would be a tragic soul; even if he had a heart, this would be a tragic person. The place of his personality is empty. The form has been remained. At the same time, he is devoid of ideological pathos by which the protagonist is filled with.

The typical, generalized and common present in him as much as he repeats himself. Nonexistent internal form is expressed by the outer form which is nothing but a stereotype. He perceives what he is and what he expresses differentially, separately. He is characterized not by the behavior, action or gesture but according to the principle. Needless to say about individualization. It is impossible to demand from him what is not present in him. He is an “actor” and plays his role according to the established principle. The detailed study of his character occurs in the moments when he does not “play’. The behavior of the anti-hero is determined, defined by the development of events.

He realizes extreme autonomously, with definite purpose. That is why he lacks living integrity. There is self-interest in him but love as the highest manifestation of living energy is absent in him. The practical purpose suppresses his world outlook. He locks the self-consciousness in one’s own self where he closes himself like a snail in its shell. The action without personality. The evil in the form of evil. This form cannot be completely abstract, insofar as it represents a feature of reality, the will of existence, the object of destination. The function of anti-hero is stable. Its theory and practice represent one wholeness. He is a symbol, metaphoric image of oppositional side.

All this concerns the outer side. Internally still goes to abstraction. One-sided subjectivism gives rise to absolute negation which is detached from the specific. The aggression turns into servile submission to the idea. The opposition hero/anti-hero is an equation with two “knowns”, the solution of which begins with the answer. In the “Martyrdom” it plays the role of plot basics, and in the “Life” has the function of an auxiliary link.

Published in the journal Sjani, vol. 15 (2014), pp. 7–11. Open the paper