The rogue and the hitman as figurative elements of the hero in literature

Abstract

When approaching the figure of the hero in the literature, one would think that it is a quite broad subject to deal with and in fact it is. Precisely for this reason, the purpose of this paper is to show the hero from the character of the rogue in baroque literature of the sixteenth century, with the work of Lazarillo de Tormes and relate it to the character of the hit man in the literature of realism of the twentieth century, alluding to one of the most representative works of the novel of violence in Colombia, such as: “La virgen de los sicarios”.
With the aforementioned figures, we will try to make a parallel relationship between the model of the hero and the masculine conception that is known in the literature of these two epochs. In addition to working on the elements that constitute the hitman and the rogue, to comprehensively address the importance they reflect, through the theme of the heroic raised here. For this purpose, use will be made of some descriptions that refer to the two figures: the rogue and the hitman, in order to conceptualize the subject in an argued way, not only emphasizing the references of the two main works worked on, but through the examples and intertextual exercises of other authors.