The Heroic Qualities Of Odysseus In Homer's The Odyssey

The Odyssey is filled with many great worriers, kings, gods, and heroes. Great gods like Zeus and Athena who helped Odysseus get back to his homeland. Great heroes like, Telemachus, Odyssey’s son who went out and looked for his father even though he did not know if he was still alive or not. Heroes like, Eumaeus, a shepherd who helped Odysseus reclaim his throne after returning back to Ithaca. The greatest of all the heroes is Odysseus, but is he really? Is Odysseus the hero that is portrayed in The Odyssey? Yes, Odysseus had many heroic qualities about him. He won many battles during the Trojan War and led a group of men not only through battle but also led a group of men through the hardships of trying to get his men back home. While Telemachus was out looking for his father and trying to find out clues that would help him find where he was, if his father was still alive, whoever he would ask about his father all he would hear would be about how great a guy Odysseus was and how they looked up to him. These are all heroic aspects and there were many more that he had. Along with all the heroic qualities, he had he also had some qualities that would bring up that he was not a hero, but in fact maybe the complete opposite of a hero. One of the …show more content…
They might even have good reasons to say he is in fact not, but by his actions, and, by the way, he followed through with his beliefs, he is, in fact, a hero. He may have done things that were not morally right at some points of his journey but for the most part and by the way that others saw him he was, in fact, a hero. One that had many heroic qualities about him and looked out for others as well as himself. He never stopped fighting, he never gave up, and heroes never give up even when the times are hard and Odysseus kept fighting through the hardships and trials he faced making his way home, and in the end he finally made it back to his homeland of