The Hero through the Ages- Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson as a Contemporary Counterpart to Homer’s Odysseus

Abstract

Richard Jenkyns writes that, "The Odyssey studies both man the individual, and man as a social animal and understands that these two elements of human experience are indivisible at the end of it, the hero has recovered his people, his property, and his most private place." This written about something that Homer wrote 2500 years ago, could well is a prologue to contemporary American author Rick Riordan's tongue-in-cheek, fictional account of Greek mythology and adventure- the Percy Jackson series. In both of their heroic quests, set nearly three thousand years apart, there is a clear emergence of several similar patterns, motifs, symbols, and themes. The hero across the ages remains essentially the same, echoing the sentiments and beliefs of the circumstances and society around them. This paper seeks to analyze the major similarities between Odysseus and Percy Jackson, and evaluate the latter in the light of a modern day Odysseus.