Moses In The Odyssey

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Both heroes are different people by the time they get home. Moses goes from an Egyptian citizen with no voice or confidence, to a leader responsible for the Israelite men. Odysseus begins and spends most of his journey as an impatient, fame-hungry man. By the end, he thinks before he acts, cares less about the glory and being a hero, and is overall more patient. After waiting ten years to have his wife back, Odysseus waits, disguised as a beggar. He eventually takes part in a contest, in which he knew he could win. It is only after this that he rids himself of disguise and earns back his wife, Penelope.
Neither hero has ultimate faith and belief in obedience to their god(s) in the beginning of their journey. Moses doubts not only his ability …show more content…

As briefly mentioned earlier, Odysseus essentially lets his entire crew die, but not to any fault of his own, according to Homer. Odysseus returns home to his wife and son, Telemachus, but does not bring his crew to safety as Moses does. Unfortunately, this is due to his crew going against his orders. The entire crew ultimately dies because they eat Helios’ cattle, which Odysseus warns them against. Prior to this, they also accidentally released the bag of winds which sent them back in their travels and all got turned to pigs by Circe. Regardless, Odysseus was extremely heroic and victorious in the Trojan War, and proved his loyalty once more when he finally returned home to his family. At the time Homer wrote the Odyssey, Odysseus was a loved and favorite hero among the Greeks for years. Which is why it comes as a surprise, as expressed by one writer in “The English Journal”, that modern readers do not see Odysseus as a hero. The author predominantly tributes this to their lack of knowledge of what people in society were like at the time. The first example they use is that modern readers see Odysseus as much less faithful than his wife, Penelope. Yet, by studying history, one will actually find that “In Homeric Greece wives were only property” and “adultery, if with a god, actually enhanced even a woman's value”(The English Journal, 2). It comes down to the change in perspective among many places and cultures concerning love and marriage. Next, the author writes that many young Americans have a problem with Odysseus’ heavy reliance on Athena. She credits this to the changing society as well, as dependence on the gods was much more common before the Odyssey was completely finished. They note that the earlier Greeks relied on intervention of the gods even more than Odysseus does. (The English Journal,