Hero disguised as the enemy

[keif]

Hello all,

I remember reading about a literary element where the hero dresses as the enemy in order to get closer. Does anyone know what book(s) this sort of thing would be discussed? I have searched Joseph Campbell's hero with a thousand faces and cannot seem to locate this, but perhaps he uses different words to describe it.

Any assistance is appreciated. Thanks!

[Nick Capozzoli]

There are some examples that come to mind in literature, under the topic of "spies," "disguise" and "camouflage," but I can't immediately recall any examples "where the hero dresses as the enemy in order to get closer." There's of course the Trojan Horse subterfuge in the Iliad, but that's a different strategy. Maybe you could view Jacob's putting on a sheepskin to fool his blind father, Isaac, into thinking he was Esau as "dressing as the enemy" in order to gain Isaac's blessing. In that Genesis story, Jacob is clearly the hero, and the more worthy descendant of Abraham than is Esau. His subterfuges (getting Esau to trade his birthright for a bowl of red porridge and fooling his blind father) are still ethically problematic.

There has always been a certain taint of "dishonest" and "unbecoming" behavior associated with putting on an enemy uniform to "get closer" to and defeat the enemy, at least in battles between humans, at least in the Western tradition. Subterfuges, like the Trojan Horse, seem OK. When the opponents are not human "equals" (e.g. gods or "monsters" versus humans) such disguising seems acceptable. Athena and other Greek gods, for example, are shown to present themselves in disguise to trick or otherwise deceive mortals in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

In warfare subsequent to classical times, spies who dressed in enemy uniforms are considered, if caught, to be in violation of the accepted rules of warfare. They do not retain the usual "rights" accorded to captured enemy combatants, and they are subject to summary execution just for the fact that they were wearing their enemy's uniform.

As recently as WWII, US military forces summarily executed captured Germans dressed in US uniforms, and indeed we did the same to captured German spies, such as those, dressed in civilian clothes, who landed on Long Island, during WWII. Well, to be precise, the Long Island spies were given a speedy trial, and then summarily executed.

[Jackson Richardson]

I'm reading Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and I'm half way through. So far the hero, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, has only appeared in disguise. In the opening chapters he visits his father's house, from which he has been banished, disguised as a palmer. Later he fights in the tournament at Ashby de la Zouche in armour as the Disinherited Knight and refuses to lift his helmet or give his name.

Richard the Lion Heart is not the hero, but on the hero's side, and so far has only appeared as the Black Knight. Robin Hood wins the archery contest at Ashby under the name of Locksley.

It was a standard narrative trope for Scott to have a character disguised, but to necessarily the hero.