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The whole reason why it takes Odysseus so long to reach home is that Odysseus needs an epic challenge to prove that he is an epic hero. The crew being disloyal on the island of Helios shows Odysseus as the epic hero. On the island of Helios, Odysseus warns his crew and tells them not to eat Apollo’s cattle. “They quickly swore the oath that I required.” (12.328). After swearing that oath, the crew kills the cattle for food. When the crew eats the cattle, this makes Apollo angry who then goes to Zeus. Zeus strikes a thunderbolt at the ship. Odysseus barely survives. He floats to Charybdis’s whirlpool and manages and to pass by Skylla unnoticed. He then, “drifted along nine days. On the tenth, at night, the gods cast me up on Ogygia, Calypso’s Island…” (12.484-485). Odysseus goes through two monsters, floats in the ocean for 10 days, and stays on an island with a beautiful goddess. When the crew eats the cattle, they spark a series of events that allow Odysseus to be in a position where he faces an epic challenge, therefore making him an epic
