The Odyssey: Is Odysseus A Hero?

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Is Odysseus a Hero
The cave rumbles as the giant snores, the sirens singing an irresistible song, the thunderous sound of water as Charybdis brings in another victim. The screaming of the sailors as they are taken by the almighty Scylla. What hero could survive these intense interactions? None other than the almighty Odysseus. Odysseus is one of the most well known characters in Greek mythology. He is known for being strong willed, clever and a great warrior throughout the book The Odyssey By Homer. These are all traits that manufacture a great hero. Along with these attributes Odysseus is a hero for many other reasons, such as his contribution in the Trojan war, his powerful will to lead, and how he contains the traits and follows the archetypal …show more content…
These are only a couple examples our class came up with when we brainstormed. In similar fashion we also did the counterpart, reasons why Odysseus is not a hero. However, there were only three reasons that our class came up with, and those were that he did not stay faithful to his wife, he killed one hundred men and that he lost all of his men. Speaking on the first point, Odysseus did cheat on his wife. Although it was for a more than worthy cause. He did only what he must have done to turn his men back from the witches curse. For some people they find this a big enough reason to disband Odysseus as a hero all together, but does the king of the Gods not cheat on his wife. If Zeus’s name is not removed from power for having an affair. Why should Odysseus? Also, every great hero in Greek Mythology massacred hundreds on hundreds of men, that is a small dent in how many men have been slain by heroes. Perseus, Achilles, Theseus. They all killed mountains of men. Yet they are still known as heroes. He was also reclaiming not only his home, but his dearly loved wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Although I previously went over why Odysseus lost all his men,I will briefly return on the point I made earlier. Odysseus was against the deadliest and most acknowledged sea monsters known to man, had a enemy who was one of the three most powerful gods and he did bring his men back to Ithaka. For these reasons Odysseus was a rather sucesful hero and leader throughout his journey
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