How is odysseus a hero. SparkNotes: The Odyssey: Plot Overview 2019-02-07
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Odysseus aids Diomedes during the night operations to kill , because it had been foretold that if his horses drank from the , Troy could not be taken. Not only did he possess all of the qualities of a hero highborn, had human weakness, brave, and clever , but he also had that of a leader. While doing this, Eurycleia notices a scar on his leg and realizes the identity of the stranger. This shows that Odysseus dishonest his way out of things. A hero is clever, respectful, brave, and shows mercy.
Odysseus has been through so much just to get back home to his family. While he was on his journey, Odysseus had affairs with other women. Before his death he abducts Helen, incites revolutions in and , communes with God, and meets representatives of such famous historical and literary figures as , and Jesus. He is also a living series of contradictions, a much more complicated character than we would expect to find in the stereotypical epic hero. Again, on the island of the Sungod Helios, Odysseus' men disobey strict orders and feast on the sacred cattle when he goes inland to pray and falls asleep.
Certainly, people can argue both ways and support their arguments from evidence in the reading. I'd also lean on the potentially controversial and claim that Odysseus also manages to gain at least a level of kleos for himself, even though he dies peacefully at home of old age - at least four people tell stories about him and his exploits, while not knowing if he's alive or dead Nestor, Menelaus, Helen, Demodocus. Achilles, of course, chose the glorious life; therefore, he achieves a kind of immortality through valor and intense, honest devotion to a cause. Let's dig a little deeper into the definition to decide whether Odysseus fits the epic hero profile. A hero is someone who does something for other people out of the goodness of his heart, Odysseus clearly is not this. The people can look to Odysseus as being a hero that they can relate to; unlike the previous perfect and unrealistic heroes, such as Hercules, that could only be admired.
At the Cyclops' house he didn't try to defend his crew members who ended up being killed and eaten. One of them was a wind. Appropriately, Odysseus' development as a character is complicated. Words: 676 - Pages: 3. Next Odysseus meets the spirit of his own mother, who had died of grief during his long absence.
Hermes persuades Calypso to let Odysseus build a ship and leave. There, Odysseus finds that the Lotus-Eaters feed his crew their food, which makes them lose any desire to return home. They put themselves in harms way to save the lives of others. The goddess Athena intervenes and persuades both sides to make peace. He's somehow managed to achieve the effect of as if he'd died an heroic death somewhere unknown, but he hasn't! Odysseus the Hero For a character to be an epic hero, he must possess four characteristics. The trip home that he must journey on takes him a complete decade.
He tells Telemachus that he will replenish his stocks by raiding nearby islands. Odysseus has traditionally been viewed as Achilles' antithesis in the Iliad: while Achilles' anger is all-consuming and of a self-destructive nature, Odysseus is frequently viewed as a man of the mean, a voice of reason, renowned for his self-restraint and diplomatic skills. Words: 1128 - Pages: 5. In exchange for some help from regarding the hand of , advised him to make all the suitors swear an oath that they would respect his final choice and that they would support the husband and wife in any ill fate that the two may face in the future. However, the motives for both of their journeys differ as Aeneas was driven by this sense of duty granted to him by the Gods that he must abide by. Let's look at some examples from his journey.
Odysseus was given advice from Circe that said not to try to fight Scylla even when she takes six of your men, but Odysseus tried to fight her and he lost three more men than the six he already lost. While on his journey back home, the suitors and Antinoos have taken over his kingdom. Dante does not have access to the original Greek texts of the Homeric epics, so his knowledge of their subject-matter was based only on information from later sources, chiefly 's but also ; hence the discrepancy between Dante and Homer. He automatically resorts to violence. Even Poseidon is no longer angry with him, something that raises Odysseus in the rankings of the ancient Greek heroes.
In his absence, however, they do, and , enraged, demands from to punish them, or else he would take the with him to the Underworld. There are so many things that can turn an ordinary person into an epic hero and Odysseus is a great example of this. The passion, the bloodthirsty rage after Patroklos is killed - in fact, Achilles' wrath is one of divine origin. Also, because Odysseus had not returned home to Ithaca, many men tried to wed his wife, Penelopeia, so that they could rule his kingdom. The Greeks dither out of fear in deciding a winner, because they did not want to insult one and have him abandon the war effort. He humiliates Polyphemos, without even thinking of the effects.
