A Hero Among Men, A Man Among

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who achieves greatness through determination and hard work.
The initial contrast between myth and man comes within the first few lines. Ulysses does not gracefully acquiesce to the duties of old age, as every person must eventually do; instead, he whines like a spoiled child. Nothing suits his taste: his homeland is too barren, his wife too old. He treats his loyal subjects, whom he ought to rule with the wisdom that should be learned over the years, with such disrespect and shameful disregard that one might think that they had done some grave disservice to Ulysses to earn such a reputation in the eyes of the king. He describes his subjects as “…a savage race, / That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me” (Lines 4-5). Ulysses maintains his superiority complex throughout the first two-thirds of the poem, and he includes absolutely everyone in his criticism, especially his own son, Telemachus. He devotes lines 33 through 43 to mocking Telemachus’ “slow prudence,” ...

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