The Final Contrast I’d like to draw between these two heroes is their family, in epic poems often the hero comes from nobel background, this is true for both Odysseus and Beowulf though the situations of those families, are not necessarily the same. Odysseus was the son of King Laertes, a respected ruler of his home country of Ithaca. Being the son of the king his ascension to the kingship was uncontested, and he received all the training that the obvious heir would receive, most notably military strategy training. His father seems to have ruled for quite a long time, as he’s still alive in the Odyssey. He seems to have retired from the throne, and now runs a farm in Ithaca not far from the palace. Odysseus then has had the benefit of watching
