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Odysseus Tragic Hero In Homer's Odyssey

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One would assume that all great heroes are selfless people who only good thing. However, this is not always the case. Odysseus, the epic hero in The Odyssey, is a man who is loved by everyone. However, they turn a blind eye to the fact that he is a very egotistical hero. Most of Odysseus’ “heroic” acts are to benefit himself and not for the people that are seeking his heroism. When someone looks at all the benefits that Odysseus got out of these acts, one could see why he kept wanting to be the hero. The hero gets all of fame and attention from everyone about the good deed. All of these good deeds were quickly turning into greed. He may save many lives and protect many people but does the acts in a self-centered way only to benefit himself. He does not seem to be in a hurry to get back to Ithaca. Multiple islands that they stopped at on their journey, they spent unnecessary amount of time on. Odysseus and his men ended up spending an entire year on Circe’s island for no reason besides the fact that Circe wanted him to stay. This was selfish because he was not thinking about his family back at home. He was just thinking about enjoying himself with Circe and her nymphs. His wife Penelope was back in Ithaca running a kingdom, …show more content…
When the ship came upon the Sirens, he made all of his men cover their ears. Conversely, he had the crew tie him to a post so he could be the first person to ever hear the Siren’s song and live to tell about it. This was just for his own pride. He did not need to hear the song he just wanted to be the only one. Odysseus made it look like he was looking out for his men but he had ulterior motives. When he was recounting the stops on his journey at the king Alcinous’ feast, he bragged to the listeners about the beautiful Siren song. Of course, this left all of the people listening to his tale in shock and they surrounded him with

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