ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses various forms of traditional hero narratives, beginning with the Gilgamesh story and referring to other narratives in global folkloric and mythic traditions. The earlier and more recent scholarly approaches to these traditions and their meanings are briefly discussed as a background to the inherent ambivalence within such narratives, taking the forms of failure, contradiction, and deviance. The conclusion reached through this analysis is that the ambivalence within hero narratives allows for a ‘convenient’ narrative and societal fluidity that allows different communities to deploy hero narratives through a great range of cultural imperatives.
