Essay From English Class

In the extended body of this blog post is an essay that was part of a test on The Odyssey that I’ve just completed. I could pick from 3 essay topics, the one I chose was “In the modern, 2007 sense of the word, is Odysseus a hero?”. Feel free to express what you think of it in the comments of this blog post. Enjoy, Alex.

The sense of the word "hero" back in the time of Homer and Odysseus was more tied/ bonded with being half-god, half-human. This meant that good deeds and other advances like that weren't of great importance. Nowadays, in 2007, the word "hero" is the exact opposite, it's currently tied to doing a good deed and/ or understanding that you've done or about to do a good deed for the world. Odysseus was considered a hero because his father was a good, yet his mother a human. He did accomplish some good deeds in his lifetime (the Trojan War, etc.), but he never needed those to be called a hero. So, based on today's standards he wouldn't be a hero. Then again, everyone has read or will read The Odyssey, and so at that point they do count Odysseus has a hero because of the text. "Because of the text" seems to relate to needing specific examples, but truthfully there are none because the whole text is the example. With that said, this is a hard question to make an answer for. On the one hand there's today's dictionary definition of the word "Hero" (a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities : a war hero.), yet on the other hand there's the fact that because of the text we know Odysseus as a hero. You need to choose for yourself, I prefer to look at Odysseus as a hero because the text tells me that he is. But you could just as easily side with the dictionary definition (in the parentheses and 11 pt. text above) and therefore say that Odysseus isn't at all a hero, just an ordinary man.