Revising the heroic tandem in Louis de Bernieres' Captain Corelli's Mandolin

This study has a modest and limited aim to describe the flexibility of the heroic concept, images of the heroic tandem and phenomena of masculinity, gender issues and sentiment which are to be found throughout Louis de Bernieres' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Louis de Bernieres' novels are quite complex and notewothy to analyze in relation to myth. Considering the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, it can be said that it is a work which handles myth as a medium in order to demonstrate and question psychological dilemmas and human existence in a postmodern world. In the view of fact that Carlo Piero Guercio, Captain Corelli and Pelagia are presented as hero and heroines in the contemporary world. The concept of the gender is also vital aspect in the novel in order to explain the heroism concept in the novel. In this respect the novelist opens various gates in order to re-think myths in an original way. Therefore, he plays with the mythical stories, he deconstructs and then reconstructs them in the way of thinking contemporary understanding of heroism. Accordingly, his main aim is to show how new meanings occur in the eyes of contemporary people. From this point of view, this study displays the importance of heroic tandems and how their relationships are in the past and revised versions of heroic tandems in a postmodern work Captain Corelli's Mandolin.