How Is Odysseus A Hero

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According to Joseph Cambell, “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than himself.”. In The Odyssey, Odysseus tries to get home after winning the Trojan war, only to get multiple displeasing obstacles in his way. But he fights through each and every one of these obstacles with his thinking. Along the way he shows his physical strength and strategy and great thinking before his actions. Throughout The Odyssey, Odysseus shows he is a hero because he is intellectually stronger than other men. Physically stronger, along with emotionally stronger than others. In book 9 of The Odyssey, When Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclops, he finds a cave that the crew goes into, he and his crew find food and eat away. After …show more content…
This shows Odysseus’s plan of thinking, getting the Cyclops drunk so he doesn’t understand his situation and falls asleep drunk, only to wait for Odysseus and his crew to blind the Cyclops when it comes to him falling asleep. Along with that, Odysseus says, “I am Nobody.” When saying this line, he is showing his strategy of thinking and smartness, knowing the Cyclops will yell for help when it comes to making him blind, so the other Cyclops don’t come in and try to help him. And making him blind will have him open the door, but he cannot see if Odysseus and his crew will escape. In book 21 of The Odyssey, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca and is in disguise as a beggar, Odysseus does not want anyone to know he is back home and he sees how his kingdom is run by the suitors trying to find out who is against him so he can take them out for the sins they have made when he was gone. Odysseus demonstrates his heroic behavior when he asks the suitors if he could try the bow. This shows his physical strength in challenging situations, one way he has exhibited his physical strength is when he was the only one who single-handedly strung the bow that no other suitor could, proving his exceptional skills and