Image Of Child Heros :: essays research papers

Image of Child HerosThe image of a child champion or trickster is gain vigorn in compositiony a(prenominal) cultures. Thiskind of role can tell a lot about how a culture acts and reacts to things. Theidea of the child hero in stories written and told in the lead the birth of Christprobably glow the peoples beliefs that the child is the future, and thereforecarries some sort of power or gift. For stories that were written after thebirth of Christ, the child could reflect the idea stated above, or it could in any casebe the peoples belief in an infant savior, that a child will make everythingright again.Whether the story comes from in advance Christ or after, the one uniformaspect about these stories is that they are present in every culture, all aroundthe world. The image of the trickster is also very prevalent in the differentcultures. It is seen in many different fables and moral-based stories.You cannot go against the Philistine, you are but a youth, and he haslong been a man of war(Metzger 145). This is what King Saul of Israel said toDavid when he proposed that he fight the Philistine warrior Goliath. The storyof David and Goliath is quite possibly one of the oldest child hero stories.It was part of the Bible, in the Old Testament. In this story a young man namedDavid proposes to the tabby of Israel that he fight and attempt to kill Goliath,the giant that had been plaguing Israel. The king agrees, however hesitantly,and David goes on to slay the beast using just a slingshot. While this storyis not one that was made up, it still shows us that the superannuated Hebrewsbelieved in the fact that a child, or in this case teen, has the will andmotivation to do the impossible.Staying on the eastern side of the world, we will next see examples ofRussian stories. In the former Soviet Union, a lot of the time stories, booksand other types of art were hard to come by. In a broader sense, though, recent days have witnessed genuine cultural enrichment, as Gor bachevs glasnost policypermitted the works of previously forbidden writers, artists, andcinematographers to become accessible(Grolier Multimedia). After the public wasable to get at the mass of stories that had been kept from them, there was evenmore of an increase of books and other forms of art. The Russian people now hadmuch more of an incentive to write. In a certain village, not near, not far,