Shakespeare uses this Archetype in some very interesting ways. Instead of simply giving us a 'hero' figure, he gives us a main character who could be a hero and then puts him under pressure - but these characters don't always succeed. It is left to us then to decide if these characters are actual heroes or not. Since we've all read Hamlet, it is easy to see what I mean. He is a prince, he has a complication - but he doesn't face it nobly or heroically. This leads us to ask the question or our Heroic Archetype, "what really makes a hero?"
As Joseph Campbell's book sates, "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won" (23). Thus Shakespeare questions our very view of what being a hero really is. As strange as it sounds, I actually really like this because it makes me look closer into the story line and character, making my own judgments and actually taking something influential away from the text.
Bibliography
Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. Print.
