Homer's The Odyssey is both a tale of a man's journey home after long years at war and a tale of a man's spiritual voyage through his own soul. Odysseus' role as an epic hero changed throughout this epic poem a bloodthirsty warrior when leaving Troy to a wiser man when arriving in Ithaka. Odysseus left Troy with a pride that led to his downfall and grew with knowledge and humility that brought his eventual rise.
             The beginning of The Odyssey displayed a ferocious warrior who, along with his men, "stormed [Ilion] and killed the men who fought" (The Odyssey). Odysseus' command for his men to stop and return to the ship was weakened by his lack of effort to enforce his order, implying his apathy towards the ransacking of Ilion. The greed and bloodlust displayed by Odysseus and his men showed that they valued battle and blood more than their voyage home, and this foreshadowed the dangers in stored for them. This forewarning continued as Odysseus journeyed to Hades where he heard Teirasias' prophetic visions regarding his trip home. Teirasias predicted that the journey either could be peaceful or, if the crew and Odysseus can not restrain their desires, be plagued by death and destruction. Not heeding these warnings cost the lives of a third of his crew, leaving Odysseus alone to spent nine years on the island Kalypso before again attempting to continued his journey home.
             After nineteen days of enduring a vicious storm at sea, Odysseus, half-unconscious, bloody, and naked, was washed ashore in Phaiakia. This event symbolized the death and rebirth for Odysseus because his incubation on Kalypso ended, and he emerged naked and bloody, like a newly born child. Once he landed on Phaiakia, Odysseus realized that he could not persist as a bloodthirsty warrior, but rather must heed the wisdom passed on to him by Teirasias and change his outlook of everything. At this point of the story, Odysseus began to fully comprehend ...