Odysseus As A Hero

Many think being a hero is having super powers, but on the contrary it's more than that. A hero is one who is distinguished for their courage and bravery, and looked upon for their great deeds. A hero like this is not just found in modern society today, but in mythology as well. In the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus earns the title of a true hero by conveying many qualities such as: determination, courage and leadership.

A true epic hero has many very defining characteristics. Usually you will find this hero to be the ‘alpha male. ' With an almost super hero personality, epic heroes are extremely above an average human being. This character must be of noble birth, and as a result, this gives them great respect and many resources. There is a deep reverence for the gods and this helps the hero through tough times. An epic hero is bravery than the other characters. They are willing to take bigger risks and reap greater rewards. Despite these strong traits, there is usually an element of deep suffering that the character must deal with through out his story. No matter what, however, the epic hero will always win out in the end in a good vs. evil type of

Ten years after the fall of Troy, Odysseus a great hero has yet to return to his home in Ithaca. It begins with Athena and Poseidon who helped the Greeks during the Trojan War. Athena turned against the Greeks and convinces Poseidon to do the same. The Greeks are hit by storms on the way home and many ships are destroyed and the fleet is scattered. The war and his distress at sea keep Odysseus away from Ithaca for twenty years.

In Greek literature of mythology, we have examined Odysseus. Students and scholars alike have held debates about Odysseus. The discussion is whether Odysseus was a true hero, as read in The Odyssey. There is abundant supportive evidence to verify all sides of the debate and opinions held about Odysseus. Odysseus had encompassed many qualities that I believe make him a hero. The qualities he embodied were mental strength, physical strength, and spiritual strength. I would like to advocate for why Odysseus was a hero.

Odysseus tends to use strategy over strength to be a hero when it comes to challenges. Instead of beginning with fighting the Cyclops, he takes his time and sets up a plan. Everytime he enters a new island, he does not start telling everyone that he is Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Instead, he charms the people he meets and uses his wise words that cause them to help and pity him. Odysseus represents what being a hero is actually all about. Throughout the novel The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus continuously shows his personality of being an admirable hero to everyone by using strategy instead of strength.

For generations, heroes have always fascinated people and people have strived to achieve certain qualities of their heroes. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is considered the hero of the story. While Odysseus does demonstrate some qualities that are not heroic, he is still defined as a hero because of his better, more heroic qualities in which he is far superior in than any other man. The qualities in which define Odysseus as a hero are courage, intelligence, and leadership.

Many people refer themselves as heroes but Gavilan has made The Hero’s Journey which shows the requirements of being a hero. Odysseus is considered a epic hero according to Joseph Campbell article The Hero’s Journey and the qualifications of an epic hero. Odysseus was lost at sea coming across lands that is unknown and may be dangerous. After 20 years he finally makes it back home safely, in the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer. In The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell it shows what skills or events the stories must meet to be required an hero’s journey. Odysseus qualifies as a hero because he meets the following components based on that he has to complete a quest, he has a mentor, and he has allies.

spoke to him, "Put up your weapon in the sheath. We two shall mingle and make

Another way Odysseus is also a hero is he always finds a way to survive whether he is in conflict or out on the sea. One of the many situations Odysseus survives is his encounter with Skylla. Six of his crew members do perish but through his hard work and dedication he survives. He makes another smart decision in choosing to go through Skylla instead of Kharybdis because only six of his crew members die instead of the whole crew. Another decision Odysseus makes to survive is not eating the cattle of Helios while on Thrinikia, his crew members choice in eating the hallowed cows results in their death, but Odysseus knew the consequences and did not touch a cow. Another way Odysseus' quick-decision skills helps him is when he chooses to leave the island of the Lotous-eaters, because he realized his whole crew would have fell under the curse if he had stayed there. Odysseus is also a master tactician whose complex plans save his crew and help him regain his crown. One of these plans was his ingenious idea to trick Polyphemos, which shows he is a hero by saving countless lives. Another plan he implemented was to kill the suitors which is also a success because Odysseus and Telemakos themselves kill over a hundred men without an injury to themselves .Odysseus is a quick-thinker whose resourceful ideas save many lives.

Odysseus is a hero, not only because of his ability to overcome obstacles, but he keeps his men with him almost the whole journey. One example is when Odysseus made sure his men would be safe for the syrens as they go through the sea. “Going forward I carried wax along the ling, and laid it thick on their ears. They tied me up, then, plumb amidship, back to the mast, lashed to the mast, and took themselves again to rowing. ” (Homer 933) Odysseus made sure his men wouldn’t be able to get loured by the syrens by putting beeswax into their ears. That is a very smart and heroic decision by Odysseus. One more time he made sure to keep his men with him was when he was in the cave with Polyphemus. Odysseus and his men were in danger when in the cave with the Cyclops. “I drew it from the coals and my four fellows gave me a hand, lugging it near the Cyclops as more than natural force nerved them; straight forward they spritnted, lifted it , and rammed it deep in his crater eye, and I leaned on it turning it as a shipwright turns a drill in plaking having below to swing the two-handed strap that spins it in the groove.” (Homer 906) Odysseus had to come back and protect the rest of his men after Polyphemus ate two of them. So Odysseus rammed a hot rod into the Cyclops’ eye.

He learns numerous things in his journey. One of the things he learns is that he will never be as powerful as the gods. He also learns that he can only be as strong as the gods want him to be. Later he learns that he has to think things out before doing things instead of doing them by instinct. Odysseus proves that he learned to think out a plan before doing things, while he is on the island of the Cyclops. An important trait a hero has is intelligence, which is a trait Odysseus has. He who is intelligent used his intelligence to learn from his mistakes. Even heroes make mistakes, but only real heroes learn from

In this essay I will be discussing the epic hero, Odysseus of "The Odyssey", by Homer. When humans ended their nomadic lifestyle and started creating civilizations they stopped dedicating their time to hunting, gathering, and basic means of survival. They needed to be kept entertained. They told stories, wrote literature, and expressed their emotions through the arts. One method of entertainment people turned to was the art of epic poems. Epic poems are poems that contain thousands of lines and have an epic hero. This essay will be centered around the question of why Odysseus is an epic hero.

The Book called The Odyssey is centered around the hero Odysseus. The part about this story that makes it challenging to talk about is the argument around whether Odysseus is a hero or not. Many Literary scholars of The Odyssey by Homer have argued that Odysseus is not a hero, closer examination shows that he clearly was a hero because he led them to victory in the Trojan War, he turned his men back into actual men, and he even went to the underworld where few to none have escaped freely. The logic of this is debated a lot because of the judgements he made during the war and the journey back home.

Nearly every story in Greek mythology revolves around a character with a certain outstanding attribute, be it strength, intellect, or even musical talent. Heroes such as this might spend their lives questing for kleos, or the myth might simply be a tale in which the hero was trying to accomplish a certain task, such as returning home or rescuing a lover from Hades. In every case, these heroic tales would always end with tragedy; the hero would be killed by a jealous lover, go mad, or have a loved one taken away from him. However, one Greek hero existed whose story did not end with tragedy: Odysseus. Homer's The Odyssey is unique among all other Greek myths in that it is the only story in which the hero does not meet a tragic end; why

Upon first glance, the story and plot of ​ The Odyssey seems quite comprehensible. Most people will look at Homer’s work and will see the great Odysseus as the main character and focus of the story. Odysseus is often viewed by individuals as a heroic figure, an epic hero to be specific, and the King of Ithaca. He is seen as a man who has done the impossible, which includes battling through countless obstacles, slaying monsters and people alike, and somehow, miraculously, managing to make his return home after a grueling twenty years. These statements are exactly what most people envision when they think about ​ The Odyssey. They really have every reason to think this way because after taking just one glance at the title, it is clear how