Significance Of The Hero's Journey In The Odyssey

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In Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the main protagonist, Odysseus, must find a passage back to his home island, Ithaca. Odysseus has been fighting in the Trojan War for ten years and now feels the urge to come home. The “Hero’s Journey,” an essay by Joseph Campbell, represents the common path that most heroes from all cultures such as Odysseus take on their journey. The “Hero’s Journey” follows a series of trials and challenges that the hero must overcome to succeed. Odysseus’s journey follows a similar path as Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey.” For example, Odysseus when triumphs Entering the Unknown, receives Supernatural Aid, and prevails through Supreme Ordeals. Odysseus Enters the Unknown as he leaves Cicones and arrives at the lotus eaters island. Odysseus saves three of his comrades by “[driving] them, all three wailing, to the ship, tied them down under the rowing benches”(Homer, Part 1, 564). Odysseus’s crew must overcome trials no mortal has thus survived. This episode of his crusade displays how “[his] endurance, strength, and mettle are [to be] tested time and time again”(Campbell). Homer’s “The Odyssey” has a direct correspondence with Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey,” for Odysseus most certainly needs to …show more content…

The gods and goddesses in Greek mythology use their individual powers to affect the world and those who live in it. After turning Odysseus’s men into swine and back “Circe informs him that in order to reach home he must journey to the land of the dead”(Homer, Part 1, 576). Greek gods and goddesses often give aid to mortals who they feel deserve it, usually heroes. Circe meets the criteria of supernatural aid by “[giving] them the means to complete the quest”(Campbell). This phase in the “Hero’s Journey” signifies that this is a world where their ordinary world laws may not be followed, forcing heroes to adapt to this new land to complete their

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