How Is Odysseus An Archetypal Hero

In the novel, The Odyssey, Homer characterizes Odysseus as an archetypal hero who goes on a journey to accomplish a particular goal. As any other hero, Odysseus encounters many problems, but unlike most heroes Odysseus faces many mental challenges rather than physical challenges. This compares a lot to another archetypal hero, Bilbo, in J.R.R Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit. However, they also have many differences.

The Hero’s Journey consists of the ordinary world and the special world

The steps in the ordinary world are the call to adventure, refusal of the call, meeting the mentor and crossing the threshold is the cross between the ordinary and special world. The steps in the special world are test, allies, enemies, approach, ordeal, death

and rebirth, reward, then lastly the road back. The last steps of the ordinary world are the resurrection and return with the elixir. The archetypal hero is a character who struggles against evil. This hero is put into the story to restore harmony and peace to society. He or she has previously always exhibited good qualities or traits. These heroes usually appear in all religions, mythologies, and epics of the world.
There are many characteristics of Odysseus.

He was prideful, strong, exhibited eloquence, endurance, and shrewdness. He was also considered wise, resourceful, endurant, and courageous. However, he was also egocentric, self-centered, and prideful. As the Son of Laertes of Ithaca, and father to Telemachus, he was also a war hero and a king as well as a leader to his crew. As husband to Penelope not have seeing her for twenty years he dreamed of getting back to her. His strengths were that he was cunning and witful. However, he did have a bad weakness. His worst weakness was his curiosity. Curiosity itself is okay because everyone gets curious, but Odysseus had curiosity without boundaries. He let his curiosity get the best of him, for example when he and his crew encountered the Sirens. Odysseus also encountered many challenges. He escaped Calypso, he was let free by Hermes who convinced Calypso to let him go, faced Sirens, by keeping himself tied down beeswax over his crew’s ears so that they couldn’t hear the song and wouldn’t be lured by the sirens, defeated Scylla and Charybdis, though he did overcome this challenge his ship was destroyed and he remained living on a plank of wood remains from his ship, he also defeated a room full of suitors, because Athena, his mentor, gave him the strength to defeat them, but she also helped him along with others. Like in the Hero’s Journey Odysseus faced

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