12 Labor Of Hercules Essay

Hercules, perhaps the most famous hero in western culture, despite the fact that some of his most heroic acts were not for the direct benefit of others but to absolve himself of the murder of his wife and children. The so called Twelve Labors of Hercules weren’t done for heroic reasons but that does not make them any less heroic. The Labors that Hercules undertook were more than enough to absolve him of his crimes. Hercules was misguided in his need to absolve himself of the sin of killing his children and wife because he was not under control of his body when it happened, and was forced to do it by Hera, despite this the overwhelming guilt of the aftermath caused him to seek out a way to cleanse himself. The first of the twelve tasks given …show more content…
The fifth labor of Hercules was to clean the Augean Stables in less than a day. The stables hadn’t been cleaned in years and as such were filled in an extremely thick layer of animal dung. The task would have been impossible for anybody except Hercules whose enormous strength was the key to accomplishing this labor. Rather than attempt to clean the stables by hand, which would have been impossible for even Hercules, he diverted two rivers, and used the combined force of them both to clean out the stables. The reason that this labor is so important to absolving Hercules of his sins is that, it is embarrassing and menial, rather than heroic, which humanizes and humbles Hercules who had done so many things that were beyond the reach of normal humans that he had started to become more than just a man, which would have removed the need for the rest of the labors that came afterwards. Even though this task could also only have been accomplished by Hercules, it was more important, than any of the others as it made him less than a hero, which made the rest of his labors by comparison that much more heroic and