Examples Of Heroic Qualities In The Odyssey

Everyone has different personality traits. Odysseus has both hero qualities and not so heroic qualities. This epic poem is called “The Odyssey”. It was written by Homer, an ancient Greek poet. Epic hero qualities are traits the hero character of a story has. They include strength, loyalty, intelligence, and courage. One would think Odysseus has many epic hero traits, but he also has many traits that are not heroic. There are many examples of his heroic qualities. Something that shows loyalty is when he says, “So we moved out, sad in the vast offing, having our precious lives, but not our friends.” This shows that Odysseus is loyal because talking about not having his friends anymore and being with his men. He also has strength. “I drove them, all three wailing, to the ships, tied them down under the rowing benches…” shows this because it takes strength to tie three men down to a ship. When he shows courage, he says “We beached there, and I told the crew to stand by and keep watch over the ship: as for myself I took my twelve best men and went ahead.” in which one would notice Odysseus had the courage to go see who the enormous man was when he reached Cyclops Island and told his men to watch the ship for him.

He has intelligence when he says “My name is Nohbdy: mother, father, and friends, everyone calls me Nohbdy.” Odysseus told the Cyclops his name was Nohbdy to trick him, and so Polyphemus would not receive any help, which is clever.
Odysseus also has many non-heroic qualities, which is normal since nobody is perfect. Sometimes he shows disloyalty. An example of this is when he says “But as I sent them on toward Scylla, I told them nothing, as they could do nothing.” Here Odysseus is being disloyal by not telling his men everything because if he were to have told them about Scylla, they would have been prepared. When he has weakness, he says “Slipping away, I struck across the island to a sheltered spot, out of the driving gale.” He feels that he is not strong enough to travel in a storm, so he finds a peaceful place to recover. Odysseus also demonsrtates cowardliness. When he says, “She ate them as they shrieked there, in her den, in dire grapple, reaching still for me – and deathly pity ran me through at that sight – far the worst I ever suffered, questing the passes of the strange sea,” he is very afraid of Scylla because it is eating his men.One last this he shows is stupidity. He says, “How do you like the beating that we gave you, you damned cannibal?” Odysseus stupidly tells Polyphemus that he was the one who fought him and regains his attention again. Odysseus has many traits that are heroic, but he also has traits that are the opposite of those. One would think that Odysseus has good traits and bad traits because everyone has flaws, but he is a hero regardless of all of his imperfections.