The Hero Of Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

In the Odyssey, Odysseus must persevere through many challenges and hardships. During his journey he displays the almost godlike qualities of the typical hero in a Greek myth, and the regular qualities of a human man. Throughout the entire story Odysseus possesses a very human goal: to return home and see his wife again. He constantly displays emotion for his wife during his travels. Athena acts as Odysseus’ mentor during his journey. Athena is always there with him, helping him get home or performed heroic deeds. Most of his heroic actions however were thought of and performed by Odysseus. Throughout the Odyssey Odysseus displays the traits of both a traditional hero from Greek mythology and the traits of an average human man. Odysseus’ heroism always seems to involve his intellect rather than his strength, for example five men aided him in driving a spike through the Polyphemus’ eye (324 to 329), which shows that he was not the strongest of the Greek heroes. Odysseus also saved his men from the witch Circe (Book 10),

Early in the epic Odysseus is “captured” by Calypso, who is described as very beautiful, but he is faithful to his wife he wishes to return home, instead of being with the beautiful nymph, Calypso (book 5 of the Odyssey). Odysseus and his men also ransack the home of the Cicones for fun or for supposed glory (lines 150 to 170). Odysseus also tells Polyphemus his name after he had him thoroughly tricked into thinking Odysseus’ name was Nobody. Odysseus seemed to do this for glory, but in fact once Polyphemus knew his true name he started cursing Odysseus to the god Poseidon (Lines 395 to 423). Odysseus makes several more mistakes throughout the epic (which is a very human characteristic), such as wanting to listen to the Siren’s song even though he knew he might die from