Odysseus As The Modern Hero In Homer's The Odyssey

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Oftentimes, when the word “hero” is mentioned or thought of, the attributes of strength, bravery, and superhuman powers automatically come to mind. However, this concept of a hero is old. In modern days, the definition of a hero has changed from a superhuman figure, to a person who possesses the traits of selflessness and forgiveness. In Homer's well known epic, The Odyssey, he portrays the out of date idea of an epic hero as a figure who was helped or harmed by the gods and contains superhuman strength or guile. Clearly, the qualities of a hero have outgrown the old, unrealistic concepts, and new qualities were born such as: forgiveness and selflessness. Based on the attributes listed, Odysseus is not a modern day hero. While reading the epic, the reader can easily notice …show more content…
This is shown during Odysseus’ bittersweet homecoming, Ithaca did not greet him with open arms. After a challenging twenty years at sea, he comes back home to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, to find out there have been many men, who identify as ‘Suitors’, and want to court Penelope into marrying them. To appease his taste for revenge, the heroic figure planned to kill the suitors. He violently used no mercy against them. In book twenty-two, the wooers were having a divine dinner in the hall until Odysseus started to shoot them with his specialty weapon, the bow and arrow. Unlike a true hero, Odysseus does not just kill the men, but he takes it to another level. He excessively tortures them by stabbing and cutting their hearts and livers, “An arrow at that instant, and the quivering feathered butt/sprang to the nipple of his breast/ as the barb stuck in his liver” (22.83-5). Since the heroic figure was extremely implacable and lacked compassion, he ruthlessly killed more than one hundred men because of his desire for retribution and fails to compare to the modern

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