Homer's Odyssey: The True Epic Hero

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The True, Epic Hero Homer’s Odyssey is about a Greek war hero named Odysseus on a journey home. Odysseus faces many enemies and problems on his journey and when he arrives home. Odysseus displays the traits of an epic hero because he faces circumstances only a hero can handle. Epic heroes are defined by supernatural abilities, and Odysseus’s experiences require extraordinary courage. Odysseus’s courage is displayed fighting the sea monsters "I donned my heroic armor, seized long spears in both hands and marched out on the half-deck, forward, hoping from there to catch the first glimpse of Scylla, ghoul of the cliffs, swooping to kill my men," (Odyssey 12.247-250). Odysseus has to show extraordinary courage against the sea monsters if he…show more content…
Odysseus is meeting with his mother and when he tries to hug his mom "Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her, like a shadow, dissolving, like a dream, and each time the grief cut to the heart, sharper, yes, and I, I cried out to her, words winging into the darkness," (11.235-239). Odysseus is broken down to basically nothing in the underworld, and this has to happen in order for him to change his total character. Odysseus is not an epic hero if he does not have this humility. Odysseus says "time and again I vowed to all the dead, to the drifting, listless spirits of their ghosts, that once I returned to Ithaca I would slaughter a barren heifer in my halls, the best I had, and load a pyre with treasures—and to Tiresias, alone, apart, I would offer a sleek black ram, the pride of all my herds," (11.32-38) when he wants to speak with Tiresias in the Underworld. Odysseus learns humility in this situation because he has to pay his dues to the people that help him. In Troy, Odysseus takes from the Trojans, but in the Underworld, Odysseus must learn that he must give to people if he expects to receive. Humility is an important characteristic for epic heroes, and Odysseus learns it in the
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