This study explores the representation of the hero in Lawrence and Andrew Wachowski’s Matrix film trilogy, which comprises The Matrix (Wachowski, Wachowski&Silver 1999), Matrix Reloaded (Wachowski, Wachowski&Silver 2003a) and The Matrix Revolutions (Wachowski, Wachowski&Silver 2003b). Special reference is made to how Neo embodies a postmodern view of heroism. This implies an exploration into the relationship between Neo, the protagonist and hero in the Matrix trilogy, and his mythological predecessors, as well as the relationship between the representation of Neo and ideas concerning heroism. In order to further understand the nature of heroism in the Matrix trilogy, the ideas of two philosophers, namely Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), are explored and compared. It is argued in this study that the heroism presented to the viewer by the Matrix trilogy can be interpreted as being representative of the meeting of the apparently contradictory ideas of these two philosophers. Both of these philosophers, though striving for a heroic ideal, arrived at vastly different conclusions. This study, whilst considering the nature of heroism in these two views, also seeks offer an examination of the relationship that Nietzsche’s and Chesterton’s writings have to one another. This examination is not an attempt to take sides with either of these philosophers, but merely to point out certain aspects of their two distinctive viewpoints as they relate to the films in question. This study especially seeks to investigate the claim that Neo is the embodiment of the Übermensch, the figure that most clearly resembles Nietzsche’s heroic ideal. Chesterton’s views of heroism are referred to in order to counter-balance and contextualise Nietzsche’s views on this. Mainly ethical aspects of the character and narrative of the hero are focused on in this study in order to show, firstly, that these more abstract aspects are implicit in the representation of the hero in the Matrix trilogy, and secondly, that the hero belongs to a moral taxonomy. The final aim of this study is to present a coherent view of the many facets of heroism that incorporates an assessment of how philosophy, ideology and semiology underpin the visual. / Dissertation (MA (Visual Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

From the first electric lights in London along Pall Mall, and in the Holborn Viaduct in 1878 to the nationalisation of National Grid in 1947, the narrative of the simple ascendency of a new technology over its outdated predecessor is essential to the way we have imagined electric light in London at the end of the nineteenth century. However, as this thesis will demonstrate, the interplay between gas and electric light - two co-existing and competing illuminary technologies - created a particular and peculiar landscape of light, a 'lightscape', setting London apart from its contemporaries throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, this narrative forms the basis of many assertions made in critical discussions of artificial illumination and technology in the late-twentieth century; however, this was not how electric light was understood at the time nor does it capture how electric light both captivated and eluded the imagination of contemporary Londoners. The influence of the electric light in the representations of London is certainly a literary question, as many of those writing during this period of electrification are particularly attentive to the city's rich and diverse lightscape. Though this has yet to be made explicit in existing scholarship, electric lights are the nexus of several important and ongoing discourses in the study of Victorian, Post-Victorian, Modernist, and twentieth-century literature. This thesis will address how the literary influence of the electric light and its relationship with its illuminary predecessors transcends the widespread electrification of London to engage with an imaginary London, providing not only a connection with our past experiences and conceptions of the city, modernity, and technology but also an understanding of what Frank Mort describes as the 'long cultural reach of the nineteenth century into the post-war period'.