Odysseus was considered a great hero back in ancient Greece, but I do not consider him a modern day hero. To me, a hero is someone who works hard to achieve a worthwile goal and achieves it humbly. Each person has their own definition of hero, but this is how I would define a modern day hero. Odysseus is not a hero because he does not remain focused on returning home. When he finds himself on Calypso's island, Ogygia, at first he is in no hurry to return home. He enjoys having a beautiful woman so enraptured by him. He completely looses sight of returning home to his wife and son. After about a year, he remembers his quest and leaves the island. This shows that Odysseus is not that passionate about returning home and reaching his goal. If he is willing to throw that goal away, or at least put it off to the side, just for a beautiful woman, I do not think he is very hero-like. After leaving Calypso, Odysseus later finds himself on another island with the beautiful witch-goddess Circe. She turns his crew into pigs, but when Odysseus is able to outsmart her and is not effected by her spell, she falls in love with him. Once again, Odysseus is willing to throw away his goal of getting home for a beautiful woman. At this point, Odysseus' return home seems like it will maybe occur on accident in fourty years. By my definition, a real hero would remember their goal and stop at nothing to achieve it. Odysseus' constant delaying of his trip home shows that he does not really care about his goal and living a virtuous life does not matter to him, and is therefore not a hero by my definition.
Along with his lack of focus, Odysseus does not live according to good morals on his return trip. Odysseus breaks his wedding vow that he will remain faithful to his wife, Penelope, when he has sexual relationships with both Calypso and Circe. A hero should not just be someone who accomplishes great things, but a person who accomplishes these things while maintaining their morals. Cheating on one's wife who waits at home, still faithful after fifteen years, is a very shallow thing to do. A hero should look out for all people, not just for himself and what he wants at that very moment. Odysseus does not think about his loving family and abandons his morals for two beautiful women. A hero should not brag about their accomplishments. After escaping from Polyphemus' cave, Odysseus yells back to the cyclops, "Cyclops - if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so - say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!" (227). Odysseus is not content that he just beat one of the greatest giants, so he goes and rubs salt on the wound by bragging. A hero should be humble, and Odyssues is most definately not humble. He abandons this moral just so that he can rub it in that he blinded Polyphemus. Odysseus loses focus on his goal and abandons his morals so that he can have a few minutes of fun. His story is very exciting, but in the end, I do not consider Odysseus a hero.
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