Gomez Rios 1

Gomez Rios Daniel David

Marina Caloca

English 11th

August 17th, 2022

Heroes: Classic Literature Heroes and Modern Heroes

Heroes in literature bring to light the culture and show us the way in which people

thought was the best way to behave. But even though the fundamentals of heroism have been the

same throughout history, culture has changed repeatedly and has left us with a vast number of

values that sought each culture. Comparing today’s depiction of a hero in a modern western

world to another depiction of a hero in ancient times would mean finding significant differences,

and through this experiment we would find out essential things about the culture in each time.

The first and best example of heroism in classic literature is without a doubt within Homer’s

works: The Iliad and The Odyssey; but since The Odyssey focuses on the hero-protagonist

Odysseus, it is a better choice to analyze.

First, about cultural values on the heroic representation of Odysseus: He is a leader as he

leads his ship and crew through the sea, worries about others like trying to save his comrades at

the cave, honors the fallen comrades after a fierce battle, respects Gods through prayers and

sacrifices, is loyal to his wife because he wants to return to her after ten years and does not fall

for Calypso or Circe, he feels fear and other things like the cave of the Cyclops and any other

things like any other human, he faces many tragedies but goes through them, he outstands in

intellect as shown in his plan to defeat the Cyclops; and with this we can observe the traits that

Ancient Greeks sought and describe their cultural values: leadership, brotherhood, loyalty, and

even though they feel fear they should be brave, smart, strong and should be able to go through
 Gomez Rios 2

hardships. By analyzing other aspects a lot of culture can also be shown; in The Odyssey, Gods

play a big role in deciding the fate of characters, like sending storms, sending good or bad wind

for ships, making them face hardship and joy, which tell that people believed everything

involving luck was the will of Gods and they respected them; from the conversation with the

Cyclops we can see the culture of “gifts”, when Odysseus asks if he would welcome them with

gifts or be a hideous creature, which shows that people used to give gifts to visitors in their

homes as a sign of hospitality, asides from attending well the guests. The representation of a

monster like the Cyclops lets us know the fears and nightmares of Ancient Greeks, for example,

the Cyclops is a man-eater, unhuman, not bound by laws and rules and alone, unrespectful to

Gods, egoistic, selfish, and ugly.

After seeing the cultural values from analyzing The Odyssey, the difference to modern

western culture is clear. Heroes and monsters are now usually beings that have supernatural

powers and are far above the normal human; nowadays religion is not really a part of a hero’s

values, pride is no longer something that is essential to a hero or wanting to go home, heroes now

fight for others (society) and do it for justice instead of pride; In The Odyssey, the hero faces a

lot more despair before something good happens, like losing the war, barely escaping, facing the

island of the lotus-eaters, and finally facing the Cyclops, unlike modern heroes which slowly

take the conflict and solve it with a sudden battle (climax) that usually ends with victory. The

things that are still the same are: being helped with powerful beings, having a lot of friendships

and being trustworthy. On the other hand, monsters have the same essence in both cases through

characteristics like being rude, ugly, unhuman, unbounded by rules and savage; but sometimes

they have more animal characteristics and sometimes do not possess even the ability to talk like
 Gomez Rios 3

in The Odyssey, and mostly represent the instinctual fears of the human rather than cultural

fears, which is represented by villains now in the modern western world.

Reflecting on the heroes and monsters of every culture tell us about their values as has

been shown through an analysis of two different type of heroes and monsters with a difference of

more than two thousand years; but it is still surprising that the basic idea of heroes and monsters

has stayed the same and that we still have many fears and values that the Ancient Greeks had like

fearing lack of control, being alone, deviating from laws, or valuing friendship, loyalty and

bravery. An explanation like the following makes it easier to perceive: the values and fears

involving basic emotions like bravery, pride or fear of the unknown are exclusive to our nature

as humans, unchanging through time; and other things are a result of the evolution of society and

the fact that Ancient Greeks were the ones who first developed western culture and have some

relation with the modern western world. And these things we can analyze through classic

literature make it a powerful and incredibly crucial tool to know history and understand the never

explicitly told part of a civilization, which is culture.

 Gomez Rios 4

Works Cited

Homer. The Odyssey. 2002. eBook