Hero’s Journey – Sam D.

Homer’s The Odyssey and The Bible’s Noah’s Ark story

Hero’s Journey: Homer’s The Odyssey

Departure

Initiation

Return

DepartureSupernatural Aid

In the beginning of the epic poem, Odysseus calls for inspiration, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy” (Book 1, 1-5). Odysseus is simply calling on the Muse, daughter of Zeus, source of all inspiration, to guide him and give him strength through his journey. That is his way of attempting to grab hold of a supernatural aid.

InitiationWoman as Temptress

As Odysseus and his crew try to sail home from their journey, they run into a major obstacle, “Square in your ship’s path are sirens, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by/ the sirens will sing his mind away on their sweet meadow lolling” (Book 12, 4-10). The men have to face the sirens, tempting creatures whom sing a song so irresistible, it’s as if they’re luring the men to their very own death. Odysseus and his crew try to resist temptation like a teenager tries to resist operating their cell phone.

Freedom to Live

Return

Odysseus was absent from his home for twenty years straight, with a wife “patiently” waiting for him to return. “Now from his breast into his eyes the ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sun warmed beach is longed for by a swimmer” (Book 23, 81-84). At this moment, the story is coming to a close, and Odysseus has completed his hero’s journey by receiving the freedom to live back in Ithaca.

Hero’s Journey: Noah’s Ark

Departure

Initiation

Return

DepartureCall to Adventure

Noah was an extremely faithful and obeying follower of God, so God called down on him one day, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them… but I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark- you and your sons and your wife… you are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, and keep them alive with you” (Genesis 6, 11-13, 18-19). God trusted Noah so greatly that he called on him to carry out this task, this adventure, at hand.

The Road of Trials

Initiation

In order to carry out God’s command on Noah, he had to endure many rough nights and days, “Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made” ( Genesis 6, 4). Noah was to suffer through the forty days and nights in a wooden ark, with pairs of filthy animals all around, in the midst of a storm. He was on the road of trials.

Rescue from Without

Return

The forty days and nights slowly passed, “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the and floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth” (Genesis 8, 1-3). God stopped the flooding to return Noah from his journey back to earth, and build the new human race.

Works Cited

• Bloom, Harold. Homer's the Odyssey. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Print.

• The Holy Bible. Glasgow [Scotland: Collins Publishers, 1989. Print.