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The Rebirth of Heroism from Homer's Odyssey
The Rebirth of Heroism from Homer's Odyssey
Guide to the Classics: Homer’s Odyssey essay
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Different ideas of what “virtue” means are reflected in the works that have been studied over this past semester. There are different qualities and virtues that make a person a hero. Many people such as Homer, Sophocles, and Plato speak of virtues and the meaning of virtues in life and in their own stories.
In the Odyssey, a man by the name of Odysseus has been away for 20 years. He has longed to be reunited with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus along with his homeland. Odyssseus, the king of Ithaca, is known as our hero. He embodies many virtues along his journey to return home. His virtues simply keep him alive and make him a true hero. Odysseus expresses arête which ultimately means “excellence”. It can also be a meaning of goodness
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or virtue that a hero portrays. Odysseus overcame obstacles while expressing arête through several accounts where he showed bravery. One of the virtues that Odysseus shows throughout the Odyssey is Loyalty.
On a physical aspect we know that Odysseus wasn’t nessicily faithful, but on the other hand he was faithful in a mental sense. Odysseus was captured by Calypso and kept on an island for seven years. Odysseus does indeed have sexual experiences with Calypso. But in this quote we see that the mentality of Odysseus is still one who is faithful. “But all his days he’d sit on the rocks and beaches, / wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish, / gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears”. (Homer, The Odyssey, 5.173-175) Here we see Odysseus longing for his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus still having them on his mind. Odysseus still confesses his love for Penelope to Calypso. “Look at my wise Penelope. She falls far short of you, / your beauty, stature. She is mortal after all and you, you never age or die… / Nevertheless I long-I pine, all my days— / to travel home and see the dawn of my return. (Homer, The Odyssey, 5.239-243) This quote shows the loyalty and faithfulness Odysseus has to his main goal of returning home to his wife and …show more content…
son. Also Odysseus remains faithful and loyal to his men which is important virtue that makes someone a hero. An example of this is when Circe turns Odysseus’ men into pigs. Odysseus was forced to sleep with Circe in order to get his men back to normal. Odysseus says to Circe “How dare you tell me to treat you with any warmth? / You who turned my men into swine in your own house and now / you hold me here as well—teeming with treachery / you lure me into your room and mount your bed, / so once I lie there naked” (Homer, The Odyssey, 10.74-78). Here we see this Odysseus slept with Circe only to save his men. Odysseus uses his virtues to survive his long journey. Excellence is a virtue that Odysseus portrays throughout the story. Odysseus uses excellence in strategy and problem solving while making plans to make it back to his homeland. Despite the obstacles he faces, he never gives up on his goal. He thinks of ideas such as riding under the bellies of sheep in order to escape the Cyclops. Also he comes up with the idea of building a Trojan horse that made it possible for the defeat of the Trojans. These ideas reflect the arête in Odysseus. The story of Antigone written by Sophocles is one about a women and her efforts to give her dead brother’s body a proper burial even though it is against the law. Antigone, a virtuous character, never gives up on her values of obedience and loyalty to the gods. She knows that there is a chance she will die even because she is going against the law. Antigone says “So be what you want. / I’ll still bury him. It would be fine to die / while doing that. I’ll lie there with him, / with a man I love, pure and innocent, / for all my crime. (Sophocles, Antigone, 88-92) Here we see the love that Antigone has for her brother and the respect that she has towards him. King Creon unlike Antigone only shows loyalty and obedience to the state in which he rules. Nicomachean Ethics is a book written by Aristotle about ideas that are central to ethics, ideas such as happiness and moral virtue.
The word arête, here is translated as a virtue because it deals with human excellence. When arête is being shown a person is performing a function properly. Virtue is choosing what is good for its own sake. It is a matter of having the right attitude towards pain and pleasures. Our moral virtues have to do with feel, choosing, and acting well on behalf of the virtues of a person. Aristotle makes it known to us that humans have a function and we become good by fulfilling the function. “The human good becomes / an activity of soul in accord with virtue, and if there are several virtues, / then in accord with the best and most complete one”. (Aristotle, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1.7 16-18) Meaning the action that is performed well is performed with the virtues of a person then happiness will be obtained. Aristotle tells us that virtuous activities lead to happiness. Therefore virtues lead us to a happy life and without virtues we cannot be happy. Also, virtue is something that is learned through habit not through reason. Such as a bad person who comes from a bad
family. Plato, the writer of The Republic, is a
In that regard, it was no wonder Odysseus’s is such an atrocious leader. A great example of Odysseus being disloyal is on Calypso’s Island. “…He lay with her each night, for she compelled him.” (892) This quote shows how Odysseus is disloyal to his grieving wife, and sleeps with a goddess daily. A leader cannot expect loyalty when the leader is notorious for being unloyal. “Now Circe, ‘loveliest of all immortals,’ persuades Odysseus to stay with her.” (903) This is another quote that shows Odysseus cheating on his wife, while his wife is at home is at home distraught over her missing husband. A great leader leads by example. By that philosophy, it should not be expected of Odysseus’s men to be loyal to him, when Odysseus cannot stay faithful to his own wife. Consequently, Odysseus is also extremely selfish, on top of being incredibly
Throughout its history, strong values have stood at the core of Greek culture. Ancient Greeks placed a focus on a balance of mind and body. Citizens were expected to adhere to three main Greek virtues; these being respect for the body, respect for the gods, and hospitality. At times, these virtues were not upheld, usually resulting in what they believed to be punishment from the gods. Examples of this can be seen in the epic, The Odyssey, authored by Homer. Throughout the poem, a repeated disregard for the ancient Greek values teaches readers a fundamental principle of life--consequences follow poor decisions.
“What goes around comes around”,this great saying means that kindness is key. In the Odyssey by Homer, one important theme states how hospitality and kindness are always the best policy. Temptations and Obstacles represents a glimpse of allegory in life. Friendship is also a great thing in life because it's about support through tough and good times. Always feel generous with your kindness and support like Odysseus did on his journey.
Of all the heroic traits such as honor and glory, given to the reader through Homer’s epic poems loyalty seems to be the strongest, as with Patroclus in the Iliad, so it is with Penelope, Telemachus, and Eumaeus in the Odyssey. Through the use of these characters loyalty is demonstrated to Odysseus, the hero if the poem. Their undying loyalty and devotion to the warring hero gives perfect examples of how humans should act to those they claim to be faithful too.
In The Odyssey, book nine and ten written by Homer, Odysseus constantly embodies the principal characteristics of a hero which are : cleverness, leadership, and selflessness. Thus, this character is regarded as an idol among the other characters and greatly captures the reader’s sympathy for his choices and the fruit to his actions in life. First, Odysseus displays cleverness in Book Nine when he tricks the Cyclops Poluphemus that his name is “nobody” in order to escape the horrors of the cyclop’s cave. He states: “Nobody--so my mother and father call me, all my friends” (Homer, 18). Second, Odysseus is a brave leader of his army especially in book ten when he displays leadership by motivating his comrades in keep trying to sail despite the
Odysseus did not truly care how fast he got home. If he was being loyal he would do anything to get home to Penelope. Odysseus is recalling of when he and his crew stayed with Circe just for fun,“ And there we sat at ease,- day in, day out, till a year had run its course” (Homer 10 514-515). Odysseus did not truly care how fast he got home because he wasted a whole year when he could have been getting home to be with Penelope. This shows disloyalty because he is not going home to Penelope, he is kind of avoiding her. Odysseus is on his way home when they see an island:“We all turned out, intrigued to tour the island...The good red stocking our vessels holds had not run out, there was still plenty left”(Homer 9 169, 181-182)Odysseus and his crew stopped at the Cyclops’s island when they did not need to, he was kind of avoiding Penelope. Id they did not need to stop they were just wasting time. Odysseus made it to an island where he was taken care of by the Phaeacians, they ask him about what happened and how he got to the island: “Let me tell you about the voyage fraught with hardship/ Zeus inflicted upon me”(Homer 9 43-44) Odysseus did not have to tell the Phaeacians his whole story and waste a lot time when he could have been getting home to Penelope, instead of totally forgetting about
Throughout the Odyssey there are many themes that Homer uses to portray different people and events. To name a few, there are the themes of Betrayal and Revenge,Greed and Glutony, Hospitality, Role of the Gods and Wealth (the amount of money one had determined the status he held in the greek society, and this explains Odysseus's love for plunder).
Odysseus on numerous occasions, is unfaithful to Penelope. Penelope however, remains loyal to Odysseus and she is praised by greek society for it while Odysseus is never seen as adulterous for his disloyalty. However, one could argue that Odysseus’s relationship with Calypso is non-consensual, as she used her power over him as a goddess to control him and keep him on the island. In the end, however, Penelope and Telemachus are the main reasons Odysseus continues his journey home to Ithaca. The other marriage we are introduced to is the relationship between Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra. When Agamemnon returned from war, his wife and her lover murdered him. He sees this as a cruel act of deceit, despite the fact that he killed their daughter. Agamemnon views Clytemnestra, and other women as evil and untrustworthy. In book eleven he tells Odysseus, “So, there’s nothing more deadly, bestial than a women set on works like these, what a monstrous thing she plotted, slaughtered her own lawful husband!” Agamemnon makes this generalization and doesn’t take into consideration that he also cheated on his wife and probably murdered numerous
book takes place in, is called to action and set in motion on his Hero
The epic poem called The Odyssey, which was written by the poet Homer, is one of the many classical stories from Ancient Greek culture. It tells the story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and his journey back home from the war with Troy, which had occurred in Homer’s other epic Greek poem, The Illiad. Odysseus faces many trials and quests in his journey home and to take back his kingdom from the suitors, such as meeting the witch Circe, blinding a Cyclops named Polyphemus, dealing with Poseidon, and staying with the goddess Calypso. The poem has many themes that are relevant to it. One such theme is the factor of redemption. Redemption is usually a typical subject in any kind of religion, like the Greek religion and Christian religion. The story of Odysseus has an underlying message of him receiving redemption from the Greek gods. The Odyssey is a tale of redemption because it deals with Odysseus being forgiven by the gods after having to go through many trials and wrongs to rightfully claim back his wife and the throne of Ithaca.
Throughout the story The Odyssey there are many themes that represent major parts of the story. The main theme that stood out to me is love which includes loyalty. “Love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend; or a sexual passion or desire” (dictionary.com). “Loyalty is defined in the Webster's dictionary as faithfulness or devotion to a person, a cause or a duty” (Webster’s dictionary). Through these definitions, it can be expressed that loyalty and love are major themes in Homer's epic, "The Odyssey". Love and loyalty shows relationships that are between two people. The few relationships that represents love and loyalty is between husband and wife Odysseus and Penelope and also between father and son Odysseus and Telemachus. These relationships shows more than just love and loyalty though, their relationships also shows compassion, sympathy and the need to be in each one another’s lives.
The relationship between Odysseus and his wife Penelope is one of loyalty, love, and faith. Both characters are driven by these characteristics. Odysseus displays his loyalty in his constant battle to get home to his wife. This love helps him persevere through the many hardships that he encounters on his journey home. Odysseus spent 20 years trying to return to his home in Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. Along the way he manages to offend both gods and mortals, but through his intelligence, and the guidance of Athena, he manages to finally return home. There he discovers that his home has been overrun by suitors attempting to win Penelope’s hand in marriage. The suitors believed that Odysseus was dead. Odysseus and his son, Telemachus,
Homer's great literary classic, The Odyssey, represents and illustrates many emotional and mental values. All of these values can be classified under three different main themes that are constant throughout the epic tale. These themes are: A boy's struggle to be a man, a king's struggle to reclaim his kingdom, and a man's struggle to return home. As one reads this book it will become more and more evident to them that a man's struggle to get home is the most important theme throughout Homer's adventure.
In the book The Odyssey, some of the characters are downright dirty, they lie, cheat and steal just to get their way. One of these characters is the main character Odysseus. Odysseus is the King of one of the parts of Greece called Ithaca, so when he heard that his fellow Grecians were going to besiege the city of Troy, naturally, he left his baby son and wife in charge of Ithaca and left to Troy with his army. But on his way home victorious Odysseus’s ships were blown off course by a storm. He then had to find his way back to Ithaca, but along the way he met a lot of women, and he was not always as loyal to his wife as his wife was to him. So, overall, Odysseus is very disloyal to Penelope (his wife) and does not deserve her loyalty.
...n, remember that there are two types of virtues, moral and intellectual. The moral virtue as it relates to virtue in general must be an excellent making characteristic. That is, someone who is morally virtuous will be able to perform moral duties well. This illustrates how Aristotle is able to bring the notion of arête to apply to moral virtue.