Taylor Hurford
Dr. Dionne Felix
Eng 271
July 12, 2017
#2

Throughout many centuries, a multitude of stories, legends, and myths of grand heroes who have outlasted the wrath of gods and goddesses, river monsters, beasts and even spirits of the underworld, have been to passed on and told to all the generations. Many of said stories came from pieces of literature that have been translated multiple times over the years. Examples of such works include Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey as well as Virgil’s The Aeneid. While each hero in each stories encounters his own journey, there are common stages that they all go through to reach “heroism.” What defines an epic hero is someone who is wise and noble in counsel action or war. The epic hero has to have a semi-divine spirit and a god as a parent (Barua, Page 1). Achilles was a hero in each and every form of the word. He was extraordinary and is said to be one of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology. He embodied all the great values that made up a superhuman. Achilles was strong, courageous, and loyal but he was also just a man-A man with a grave weakness and without the love, fear and sacrifice of his mother, he would have surely met an earlier end. When he was just a boy, his mother, Thetis, did everything to make sure her son was immortal. She would burn him over a fire every night, then dress his wounds with ambrosial ointment and then finally dunked him in the River Styx (History.comStaff). The river’s waters were said to confer the invulnerability of the gods. This was the only way to ensure her son’s immortality. Thetis was supposed to cover Achilles from head to toe in the water but when she dipped him, she held onto his heel and it stayed dry. He was 99.9% immortal. From birth Achilles was destined to be great. Even though he was great, he was not perfect. Achilles worried about being an honorable hero so