Aleph
Volume 12, Numéro 4, Pages 327-338
2025-12-25
Eric Packer As An Anti-hero In Don Delillo’s Cosmopolis: Neither A Homeric Hero Nor A Popean Mock-hero
Authors : Benmezal Farid .
Abstract
This study intends to investigate the idea of the anti-hero in Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis. Since there is not any clear definition of an anti-hero, this type of character can only be defined by showing what he is not. The followed strategy consists of comparing and contrasting the epic conventions of the invocations to the muse, the hero’ journey, the visit to the underworld, and the unique way of using weaponry that define Eric Packer DeLillo’s protagonist as an anti-hero with those that characterize Odysseus as a hero in Homer’s The Odyssey and Belinda as a mock-heroine in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. Owing to the nature of this study, this article relies on Julia Kristeva’s intertextuality that helps in reading literary texts in relation with other texts, and Linda Hutcheon’s understanding of parody as repetition with critical distance, which marks difference rather than similarity. This methodology highlights that though the three authors use these epic conventions, their goals and outcomes are dissimilar: Homer employs them to make of Odysseus a hero, Pope to satirize the petty and trivial actions in which his mock-heroic characters are involved, and DeLillo to describe his anti- hero protagonist’s downfall and demise. Based on the findings of this study, an anti-hero can be defined as a character who faces dangerous situations which lead to his downfall due his the flaws that surpass his qualities.
Keywords
anti-hero hero intertextuality mock-hero parody
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