The Odyssey As A Great Hero

Mythology explains spiders through the store of Athena and Arachne. In her younger years, Athena was never kind to women. She once challenged Arachne to a weaving contest to show that she is better than her and others. Athena was impressed of Arachne but was jealous. In turn, Athena turned her into a spider so they she would weave forever. Today, spiders are arachnids after Arachne the spider.

The Odyssey Rough Draft When reading an Epic, it's important to know that most stories are about a hero’s journey. A hero’s journey is a story of how a hero becomes the hero, the Odyssey is a great example of this. At first, Odysseus is a selfish and cold-hearted brute but as time goes on, Odysseus learns from his mistakes and becomes a better hero. So let's explore Odysseus’ adventure to be a hero.

As Christopher Reeve, a famous actor, once said, “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” This quote is basically saying when heroes face obstacles they never give up. They always find a way to push through, or conquer the obstacle. Or they find a way to get around it. They don't just turn around and forget about it.

Odysseus and Moses represent the standard hero, which is one scarred with imperfections—a hero that commits crimes, lies, deceives, is in some sense immoral. Moses as an adolescent murdered an Egyptian who was pestering a Hebrew man (Exodus, 45) whereas, Odysseus betrays his faithful wife by having affairs with several women, such as Calypso and Circe. Odysseus’s crave for adventure and Moses’ violence show that both Hebrew culture and Greek culture are accepting of a tarnished hero only because their gods ordained it. The fact that the hero was an instrument of the gods was equally important to both cultures. Moses was picked to be the savior of Jews by God. He was to be the one who would free the Jews and take them

“The Odyssey” by Homer is an epic poem about Odysseus’ return to his wife and son in Ithica after the Trojan War. Women play an exceptionally large role in this epic poem. Odysseus’s son, Telemachus attempts to gain authority in the presence of the suitors but it is difficult. Especially once he goes on his own journey under the guidance of Athena. Throughout the epic poem however, the women play their roles as mothers, servants, seductresses, some are a combination. These ones can be seen as women in power because they use these tools in order to control men.

In Homer’s Odyssey women are responsible for many of the problems that Odysseus faced during his journey back to Ithaca. This essay will analyse how far women were responsible and also compare it to far other things caused problems for Odysseus.

The Odyssey, by Homer, is an epic poem based on the story of an ancient Greek hero, Odysseus, and his twenty year journey—ten years spent fighting in the Trojan War and the other ten spent traveling home. In the poem, Homer presents the theme of the role and nature of women. Men were the dominant gender in ancient Greece, and women, who were inferior, were only valued for their beauty and their ability to reproduce. However, in this poem, Homer both exemplifies and defies those standards by presenting certain female characters with qualities that show the various stereotypes in ancient Greek society. Through several of the female characters, Homer portrays women in three different ways. The first type of

In the seventh Nemean ode, Pindar claims that Homer has exaggerated Odysseus’ real experiences through his deceptive poetic craft and that if the majority of men had not been blind to the fact that Ajax was the best fighter after Achilles, Ajax would not have killed himself in anger over the decision of the arms (Pindar, Nemean 7.23–30). Although all men must die, some are honored in posthumous song by a god’s grace (Pindar, Nemean 7.30–32).

Through the Hellenistic era, literature evolves into depicting courageous heroes into flawed characters. The narrative of an epic poem is about triumph and glory. Through themes and narrative, the main heroes who are placed in these tales are portrayed as godlike. In contrast, tragic heroes tend to spiral to their downfall due to a fatal flaw. Epic heroism portrays the essence of a glorious and honourable hero; through time heroism was transformed into a hero that evokes pathos.

In The Odyssey it shows that all the women are uniquely different by their relationships, desire, and personality towards men. In addition, all the women help represent the typical role of a woman. Their role is very critical in the ongoing adventure in this epic poem. Homer represents women as strong roles and real life characters such as them being strong, tough, and diligent. In the story there are three major types of women, which are the goddess, the good hostess/wife, and seducers. With each one of these female characters they are a vital importance and add a different type of factor to the story. As Odysseus returns home to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus from fighting in the Trojan War he is faced with many obstacles that he must get through to get home to

The term “Hero” generally is a person who is admired or idealized for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. There are two types of qualities that a hero can have. Qualities that they earned and qualities that they owned, or were born with. Starting off with the qualities that make the hero a hero (qualities that they own) would include being “Kalos” which is Greek meaning “beautiful” or “noble” (as in nobility) and “Agathos”, also Greek, meaning “good” or noble” (as in honorable). These qualities then lead on to those qualities that are earned by the hero, including “Arete”, “Tîmê”, and “Aristeia". The Greek term “Arete”, or excellence, can be earned in a battle or debate. The term “Tîmê”, or respect/honor, can be intangible or given to the hero to help prove their worth. The term “Aristeia”, or the display of excellence, can be shown through battles and debates.

The odyssey there are the epic heroes and how say how they were important and what they did. It is about what happens when they anger a god and what they did to anger a god and their punishment for what they did which was most likely death. There were certain things they could not do and if they did do it the gods would get mad, which means they get punished possibly death.

Odysseus can be classified as one of the most well-known epic heroes, and a clear example of Greek priorities and ideals. Written many years after, the Aeneid likewise depicts an epic hero, Aeneas, that also completes a long journey and has closely related aspects to the story of the Odyssey. Virgil’s Aeneid imitates various crucial aspects of Homer’s Odyssey, including: the main protagonist passing through comparable sexual temptations, a similar relationship with the gods, and an analogous end to their enemies by their own hand. However, while the epic stories contain many similarities, Virgil starkly contrasts Aeneas’ intents and actions from those of Odysseus, illustrating Roman priorities and characteristics above those of the Greek. Both the plot parallels and the differences of actions between the protagonists help Virgil use the Odyssey to a superior, Roman epic hero.

Heroes, as depicted in literature, often undertake the most difficult tasks and place themselves in mortal danger in order to bring back, for themselves and their societies, both knowledge and treasure. Their stories follow what Joseph Campbell calls the “Hero Journey.” The Odyssey, as the epic story of the hero Odysseus, follows closely the complete cycle of Joseph Campbell’s Hero Journey, both as a physical and as a psychological undertaking. The Hero Journey, used as a framework for both Odysseus’ physical and mental journeys, serves to bind the two together. Each of Odysseus’s physical difficulties can be viewed as a metaphor for a psychological hardship that he must overcome, and by overcoming these hardships, Odysseus

‘The Odyssey,’ like other epic poems, is patriarchally centered. The poem is focused on “godlike” Odysseus and his laborious journey home (Homer, p. 334). In Ancient Greece, when Homer wrote this, women were commonly viewed as part of the oikos (household) headed by the male kyrios (master). They were expected to be submissive, domestic, and viewed as property. This raises an important question in the context of this epic: are women only secondary characters that blindly follow the decisions of their male counterparts, parallel to their role at the time, or do they have the ability to make their decisions freely? Homer, a forward thinker for his time, allowed the reader to make this judgement by including two paradoxical characters: Penelope and Calypso. Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus, spends most of her time crying and longing for her husband. She is compliant and passive, never making a decision without her husband. Calypso, on the other hand, takes her sexuality into her own hands. She traps Odysseus in Ogygia and attempts to force herself on him, showing that she does not follow the rule of being an obedient woman. Through the inclusion of Penelope and Calypso, Homer is able to address the view of women in typical epic poems by both accepting and challenging it in order to redefine what is expected of the epic tradition.