Odysseus As A Hero In The Epic Poem, The Odyssey

Heroes. Whether it be a fictional superhero or an everyday savior, everybody has at least one person in their life idolized a hero. In the epic poem by Homer, The Odyssey, one character does anything he can to get his crew and himself home to his family and homeland. Penelope had one hero in her mind for twenty years and she won’t let anyone persuade her a different direction. Penelope has longed for Odysseus’ arrival for twenty years; however, it seems he is not coming home. Then, this exciting day approached and Odysseus has completed his journey home to Penelope and Telemachus, his son. Along his journey, Odysseus exemplified many traits people may think it to be unheroic, however, he provided us with strong traits to show all of his good

Selfishness is when you lack consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure. For instance, Odysseus went into the Cyclopes cave for selfish reasons to see if they were friends or foes. For example, selfishness is shown by Odysseus when he yowled back to Polyphemus taking credit for blinding him: “‘how were you put to shame and blinded, tell him/ Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:/ Laertes’ son, whose home’s on Ithaca!” (418-420) First of all, Odysseus is not helping his crew in any way by taking the credit. Then, Odysseus always wants it his way, and his crew has no say in what they are doing. Additionally, Odysseus never listens to his crew’s ideas, which makes him seem egotistical: “ God sake, captain!/ Why bait the beast again?/ Let him alone!” (408-410) This greatly illustrates how Odysseus shatters his crew’s ideas. It seems that every time his crew gives him an idea of what they could do, he shoots it down. If Odysseus keeps shutting out his crew’s ideas they will eventually boycott him and leave Odysseus. Furthermore, if Odysseus continues being self-centered, he will end up being alone on his journeys. Given these points, Odysseus is very much a hero, however, his has an idiosyncrasy of

As Odysseus is disguised as a beggar he shot one of the suitors: “Odysseus’ arrow hit him under the chin and punched up to the feathers through his throat” (14-15). Athena comes up with this idea to disguise Odysseus as a beggar and Odysseus goes along with it because if he didn't the suitors to notice him and want to kill him. If Odysseus was not dressed as a beggar the suitors would have already had a leg up on him and possibly could have already killed him. He also disguises himself because he wanted to know how his palace has been kept up. Lastly, he was talking to the servants to see if they even wanted him to come back. Odysseus used his cleverness to check up on his palace and his family and friends. As a result, Odysseus’ cleverness, can get him out of hard situations, and can even benefit him later