Odysseus Heroic Qualities

An epic hero is defined as a person who exemplifies the highest ideals of his culture. Odysseus shows he is a great hero in the epic poem written by Homer, The Odyssey. The epic is about Odysseus’ struggle to return to his homeland after the Trojan War. It took him ten years to get back to Ithaca. He displays bravery in his encounters, cleverness in his ideas, and confidence in his power. Odysseus modeled bravery in many of his encounters at different locations. In one of these situations, Odysseus and his men are headed towards the sirens. He puts beeswax in his men’s ears so they will not hear the singing. Then he chooses to suffer through the creatures but is strapped to the boat so he won’t admit into the luring and temptations. Also, he showed bravery when Circe turned his men into swine and he strongly requested for Circe to turn them back into people, even though he was under a potion.

When he was in the land of the Cyclops, he knew they couldn’t just instantly kill Polyphemus. First, Odysseus told him that his name was “Nohbdy”. This would turn out to be a very clever idea. He made an idea to make a spear out of an olive tree and burn the tip to blind the Cyclops at a later time. This way they would be able to escape tied underneath the sheep when it moved the giant rock over. When the Cyclops cried out for help he said that Nobody had hurt him. He also showed that he was clever when he chose to go through the narrow strait close to Scylla and not Charybdis as he would only lose six men, not his whole crew. Another instance was when he was in the land of the Lotus-Eaters he knew that who tasted it would not want to come back home so he set sail