Odyssey Hero's Journey

Through the Abyss "No one of the Achaeans labored as much as Odysseus labored and achieved" (4, 119-120). Odysseus is the main character in a series of tragic events; the hero. Odysseus is the captain of his crew and leader of his army. He snakes through every presented hardship. Odysseus wants to go back home to his loyal wife and son. The monomyth, or the hero’s journey, is a cyclical quest or adventure undertaken by a hero. Monomyths contain specific parts in order to recognize one from reading text. The call to adventure is what drives the hero on his mission. Every journey must have supernatural aid and a mentor. Anything inhuman that helps the hero on his way could be classified as supernatural aid. The mentor is just like supernatural …show more content…
Odysseus is a valiant and brawny man, but he is also extremely crafty. He has orders for his crewmen and they follow-no questions asked. His craftiness comes from his leadership. When Odysseus and his crew were trapped in Polyphemus’s cave, the cyclops asks for Odysseus’s name and he replies with, “Nobody-that’s my name. Nobody-so my mother and father call me, and all my friends” (9, 410-411). So then, when Odysseus stabs the Cyclops in the eye, he will scream out, “Nobody’s killing me now by fraud and not by force!’” (9, 456). While the cyclops is screaming in agony, Odysseus and his men have the time they need to escape. The sharp-minded Odysseus cannot always use his devious schemes to flee danger. For example, “[Odysseus] rowed hard with [his] hands right through the straights…” (12, 481). This quote signifies that Odysseus will use whatever he can to survive, even if it means undertaking the tedious, back-breaking job of rowing a makeshift raft with bare hands. Odysseus even puts himself in harm’s way in order to save his shipmates. Odysseus has the crew bind himself, “hand and foot in the tight ship-erect at the mast-block, [and] lashed by ropes to the mast…” (12, 194-195). The only way to get past the sirens was to torture himself. Odysseus had to be tied to a pole and listen to the “honeyed voices” (12, 203) of the sirens, until the sound was drowned out from the space between. Odysseus’s respect towards others also played a role in his survival. When Circe gives him advice on how to escape the wrath of the Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis, he takes the information in and uses it. Odysseus pines to see his wife at last, in sunny

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