Odysseus Defines an Epic Hero Essay - 950 Words

Odysseus Defines an Epic Hero On a website posted by teachers at Harker Heights High, an epic hero is someone who embodies the values of a particular society. He is superhuman. An epic hero is braver, stronger, and cleverer than an ordinary person. He is on a quest for something of great value to him or his people. The villains that try to keep the hero from his quest are usually uglier, more evil, and more cunning than anyone we know in ordinary life. The epic hero is often of mixed divine and human birth and so possesses human weaknesses. And finally, the divine world often interferes with the human world in the heros quest. In the Odyssey, by Homer and translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Odysseus embodies everything that is†¦show more content†¦This episode shows Odysseus slightly immature nature. Odysseus and his crews imprisonment with the Cyclops, Polyphemos, show signs of his epic hero characteristics, bravery and trickery, but at the same time signs of his immature and foolish side, his huma n weaknesses. Odysseus takes out the eye of the Cyclops saving the lives of himself and his remaining crew. But later, after getting free and setting sail, Odysseus taunts Polyphemos proudly stating who he is and that he was the one who took out his eye. Polyphemos then gets his father, Poseidon, god of the sea, to invoke rage in the sea causing his journey home to be set off course and prolonged once again. Odysseus journey to Hades, the land of the dead, shows a symbolic death for Odysseus and a later rebirth. Here he meets with Teiresias who warns him of his later journeys and cautions him of his eventual return home to Ithaka where there is great danger and chaos for him. After this event Odysseus is more inclined to return home; He takes all of the advise and wisdom he has been given and realizes that he can not act foolishly as he had done before if he wants to return home alive or anytime in the near future. After his symbolic death in Hades, Odysseus has a symbolic reb irth when he washes ashore on the island of the Phaiakians, where he is naked and lost, as he was the day he was born. This rebirth is the beginning of Odysseus journey toShow MoreRelatedEpic Passages of The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homers Odyssey921 Words   |  4 PagesThe definition of a hero has evolved over time through both written word and human experiences, so what is a hero? In the two epic passages The Epic of Gilgamesh and Homers Odyssey, heroism appears to be a clear distinction with the literature, and has the same basic framework as today’s definition of a hero. 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