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Achilles Greek Hero

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“The hero returns home, atones for his crimes, and accept his limitations,” is one of the hero motifs’ listed by Powell in his Classical Myth 8th edition textbook. Throughout Greek and Roman mythology, we rarely see a hero defy this. In fact, most heroes stick closely to this. Meaning, heroes often know when they are at a point where they cannot continue and must back down. We can see examples of this in Stanley Lombardo’s translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad is an Epic Poem by Homer about the ending of the Trojan War and take over of Troy. The main focus of the poem is Achilles. Achilles was a Greek hero who turned angry and dropped out of the war because of Agamemnon. The story starts with Chryses approaching the Greeks about …show more content…

He lets his pride and anger towards Agamemnon get in the way of his fighting to help the Greeks, which in turn results in a lot of deaths including his dearest friend. Achilles often does not know his limitations. For example, when he is ruthless and clogs the river up he is acting excessive and ridiculous but fails to see that his behavior will have consequences, until his own life is threatened. However, on the flip side one could argue that in a sense, Achilles does know his …show more content…

The Odyssey takes place after the events in Iliad. In this story, we follow the travels of Odysseus on his return home to Ithaca, where he was king. After the fall of Troy, Odysseus and his men started to travel back to Ithaca but were quickly faced with many challenges that lasted nearly a decade. His crew of ships were blown off course during a very bad storm and from that moment on they were faced with several challenges including running into Lotus-Eaters who have food that causes memory loss, one eyed giants, and another shipwreck. The final shipwreck left Odysseus to face his most difficult task so far. He washed ashore an island that belonged to Calypso and when she saw him she captured him and held him for nearly seven years. During this time frame, suitors showed up at Ithaca and tried to convince his wife and son that he was dead and that she should move on and marry one of them. His son was skeptical though, thanks to Athena. His son got wind that he may be being held captive. At this point, he sets out to search for his dad as Zeus helps convince Calypso to let Odysseus leave and go

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