The Odyssey of Heroism: Odysseus and Winston Churchill

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As time moves on, and empires rise and fall, new cultures are developed, each with different values and traits. Glory in battle, saving repressed people, and other such great tasks win individuals the public’s veneration. While human civilizations have evolved, the idea of what characteristics a hero embodies has endured. By comparing the values of justice, intelligence, and courage in Odysseus, the king of Ithaka in ancient Greek mythology, and Winston Churchill, the leader of Great Britain during the Second World War, the similar traits displayed will prove the continuity of the heroic ideal, as well as Odysseus’s validity as a modern-day hero.

By fighting their respective battles for a cause they know to be just, Odysseus and Churchill display their sense of justice and righteousness. Upon his return home, Odysseus is beset by one hundred suitors wishing to claim his position as king. After preliminary skirmishing, and the suitors advancing upon Odysseus and his three supporters, Odysseus finally gives the order for fighting to break out in full force: “Now I say, friends, the time is overdue to let them have it. Battlespoil they want from our dead bodies to add to all they plundered here before” (Homer 417). Churchill, however, has war approach him in the form of the Nazi occupied Germany. Recognizing the war as more than simple bloodshed, he declares, “It is a war, viewed in its inherent quality, to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual, and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man” (War Speech n. pag). The Nazi regime is widely known and hated today for the atrocities committed against those who opposed their views. Practitioners of the Jewish faith, political opponents, intellectuals...

... middle of paper ...

...ot Odysseus’s idea to start a war. Thus, Odysseus’s actions at Troy helped to lessen the suffering on both sides. Through his victories in both World War II and the political arena, Winston Churchill has been regarded as one of the greatest men of the 20th century, and the hero of Great Britain. Displaying the same characteristics, and having similar accomplishments, it would not be a stretch of the imagination the claim that Odysseus would still be regarded as a hero in modern times.

Works Cited

Homer, and Robert Fitzgerald. The Odyssey. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. Print.

Addison, Paul. Churchill: The Unexpected Hero. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Churchill, Winston. "Their Finest Hour." Their Finest Hour. The Churchill Centre, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.

Churchill, Winston. "War Speech." War Speech. The Churchill Centre, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.

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