Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock And The Song Of Achilles

Some answers are concrete, like the solution to an equation. Others are up for interpretation, like a reflective essay. But some questions, questions like this one, have no answer. What makes a hero? Perhaps it's someone who saves the world, who performs a miracle, who defeats evil. Or maybe it's someone who puts a dollar in the cup on the street corner, who picks up a littered scrap of paper, who makes a long drive to surprise an old friend. Who's to say? There’s no way to lay out a single explanation and have it be true. That’s simply the nature of humanity; each person will have their own unique definition. What makes a hero has an entirely different and fluid answer from person to person, which can clearly be seen in the books Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and The Song of Achilles.
The protagonist of Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock has a shifting perception of what makes a hero throughout the novel. He, Leonard, is a very depressed and twisted character. His primary goal is to kill a past friend, Asher, who raped him and then kill himself. On page 185, just as he’s about to shoot Asher through a window, it says, “Kill the alien, I think. Remember what he did to you. You have every right. He's not human. He's a thing. A target.” His rationalization of the murder by thinking of Asher as something inhuman shows that he feels the world would be better off without Asher. This is his definition of being heroic: ridding the world of evil, which includes his …show more content…
The novel is from the point of view of Patroclus, who, on page 114, is having a conversation with Achilles. It says, “His eyes opened. ‘Name one hero who was happy.’ I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus’ back. ‘You can’t.’ He was sitting up now, leaning