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The Odyssey: Is Odysseus A Hero?

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Is Odysseus a hero?

The webster's dictionary definition of a hero is “a person who is admired or idealized for courage or noble achievements.” Personally when I think of a hero I think of someone who sacrifices everything to help the people around them. Someone who is selfless, bold, and gallant.
These are all examples of traits that Odysseus , the protagonist in Homer’s book The Odyssey does not posses. Odysseus is not a hero because he was stubborn, self absorbed, and ignorant towards other people's needs. This is demonstrated numerous times in the novel. For example he never listens to anyone who tries to tell him he is wrong, like Circe, he was very disloyal, and his temper always leads him to do unimaginable things to people. To be a hero you certainly have to care about the …show more content…

A representation of this is shown when Odysseus finally makes it home and irrationally kills every one of his wife’s suitors. Not only does he kill them but he also kills the innocent girls that the men forced themselves onto. He killed all of them in cold blood, when none of them deserved that. This once again justifies that odysseus is not a hero.
Several others might try to imply that Odysseus is a hero and just did all the bad so that he could achieve his long term goal of getting home. However this does not make nearly half of what he did okay. Others also might try to say that he is a hero because he went to the Trojan War, but this was also forced. He also tried to pretend that he was insane. This cowardice event shows that he is not a hero.
In conclusion Odysseus is not a hero because he is missing many profile traits a hero would posses. As I’ve expressed copious times Odysseus is not a hero because he is egotistical, cowardice, narcissistic, and alienated. He sacrifices his crew, is unloyal to his faithful wife, and is a

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