Significance Of The Hero's Journey In The Odyssey

“The Odyssey,” by Homer, outlines the journey of Odysseus after the Trojan War. Odysseus is the king of Ithaca, who is summoned to fight in the Trojan War as a fine leader. The “Hero’s Journey” represents the path, usually taken by the hero of a story, of personal change and accomplishment. Odysseus from “The Odyssey” goes through this journey throughout the epic because many features from the “Hero’s Journey” are portrayed in “The Odyssey.” A few major milestones in the hero’s journey are the Call to Adventure, the Tests and Supreme Ordeals, and the Master of the Two Worlds. Odysseus, being the hero of the story, first had to be called to his adventure. Odysseus’ men slaughter the entire town of Troy without remorse. This angers the Greek gods they worshipped, which causes them to punish Odysseus for his wrongdoings. Odysseus realizes this in part one of “The Odyssey”, “but not by will nor valor could [he] save them, for their recklessness had destroyed them all” (Homer). He knew he was doomed to a long journey home, filled with danger. This is Odysseus’ Call to Adventure, where he is faced with something that makes him begin his adventure. This might be a problem or a challenge he needs to overcome” (Campbell). This challenge is his

In the end, however, he manages to convince her. He describes the bed that only the two had ever seen. He tells of how he “Shaped that stump from the roots up into a bedpost, drilled it, let it serve as a model for the rest” (Homer 615). He was, as the “Hero’s Journey” put it, the master of the two worlds, where “he earns his reward and accomplishes his goal” (Campbell). Odysseus is now back in control of Ithaca, and is reunited with Penelope and Telemachus. The meaning of the “master of the two worlds” is that he has conquered the familiar world as well as the foreign