Stories of heroes and villains.

Stories, for centuries, have described heroes, generally focusing on men who took risks and perhaps sacrificed their lives for the benefits of others. In the past, heroes were presented as models for correct social behavior, generally for males. Females were taught quite different things and rewarded for certain behaviors (but that story is for another day. During the initiation rituals performed by the Aboriginal people, the boys were told a series of short stories about the ancestral heroes who lived in the Dreamtime. These stories taught tribal history and, Elkin (1964:156) writes and “instilled into the minds of the younger men present, for most do today what the great heroes did in the dream time”. The Bemba of Zambia tell stories about heroes and villains as they can illustrate the consequences of behavior; the good are rewarded and the bad are punished. As each generation listened to the triumphs and tragedies of their heroic ancestors, their behavior changed. Courageous acts of sacrifice became goals for the young to emulate, while the derision heaped upon selfish characters would arise in their minds as powerful obstacles whenever circumstances tempted them to shrug off their obligations to others.

Detective stories are a unique type of hero story that, written in French and English, made their sudden appearance during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. By 1901, they had become so popular that the famous art critic, theologian and philosopher, G. K. Chesterton, published a paper to explain their popularity, explaining that these stories were “a perfectly legitimate form of art”, one that confirmed beliefs that there were absolutes in life – rules that universally held – and when one ignored or violated those absolutes there would be serious consequences in life. As such, detective stories could be agents for societal good. He also wrote his own mysteries, one of which, Father Brown, describes the father in a small town in England who uses his understanding of religion to solve local crimes. These books more recently have been described as preachy and moralistic, in contrast to the more popular stories of Sherlock Holmes, a flawed hero who was led at times by his passions, but capable of using calm reason to solve crimes. Since the early 20^th century the number of detective stories has proliferated; today, they are one of the most widespread narrative forms today. And while the detectives who become heroes tend to be moral people, working for justice, the books are not explicitly moral tales. However, their influence may certainly be in that direction. The moral message is more subtle now.