ABSTRACT
Deterioration of the hero is visible in several aspects of American life. One is the ordinariness of real people before the public eye called the cult of celebrities. Another is confusion in literature and drama between good guys and bad guys, especially certain mixed characters who might be called corrupted heroes. Modern communication has brought into prominence a new class of celebrities which is setting the tone and standards of American life. Deterioration of the hero is reflected not only in mediocre celebrities, but also in certain dramatic and fictional characters. Some brutality has come from the honest effort to write naturalistically. Ernest Hemingway gets perhaps more than his share of credit for a style that antedates his work and is found among people who do not read Hemingway. Censorship, of course, is beset by so many problems that it may well prove as bad as the corruption it proposes to combat.
