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Belly Of The Hero's Journey In The Odyssey

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The Odyssey and Heros Journey Essay

“You don’t choose your destiny, your destiny is already chosen and handed to you.” In each story the main character takes certain steps in life that lead to the same ending. The Odyssey by Homer explains Odysseus's return to home. In the Odyssey by Homer through chapters nine through twelve, Odysseus displays some of Joseph Campbell’s seventeen steps of the Hero’s Journey.

On the subject of the 17 steps Odysseus takes, one of them is Belly of the whale. Belly of the whale means that the hero willingly crosses the point of no return. “But I would not listen to them, and shouted out to him in rage, ‘Cyclops, if anyone asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.” (Homer 77) None of Odysseus men are still with him because Odysseus was unable to save his comrades lives because the “recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all”, by devouring the cattle of the sun, so the sun god took …show more content…
This proves Joseph Campbells’s idea of the monomyth because the Belly of the whale represents the final separation from the heroes known world and self. The Belly of the whale takes place under the topic of departure. Departure means that you are taking the action of leaving, typically to start a journey. Odysseus left his crew, but

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