Theseus

4 Pages 1108 Words

Hero Quest Analysis of Theseus

The ancient Greek myth, Theseus is a great example of a hero quest. It includes all thirteen elements of a hero quest clearly. It also includes certain motifs that are prime in a hero quest. This great hero quest is a story of a young boy, who is weak and poor. He finds out of his great history and attempts to find his destiny. The first element that all hero quests have is that the hero usually has a strange origin and this story is no different.


As a young boy, Theseus is somewhat weak, and scared to fight. He gets beat up by the village boys a lot. One day, his mother tells him that he is really the son of a king. Confused, Thesus asks why they do not live in Athens with the king. She tells him that the king has family that wishes to divide the kingdom up among the fifty sons, and that they would have killed Theseus immediately when learning of his origin. But that is not the end of Theseus’s strange origin. One day while laying by the sea, wishing the sea would kill him, a gull visits him and tells him his true origin. He is born the son of a king, but where he came from is much stranger than the king of Athens. The gull tells Thesus that his father is Poseidon. The gull serves as the guide or teacher motif that is seen in most all hero’s quests. The gull serves as an important part of the story, by giving Thesus many hints and lessons before the journey. Theseus also includes the element of the hero not being invincible. Although Theseus is strong, he is far from invincible.

Theseus’s main weakness as a young boy was his self confidence. He did not believe he could defend himself against even the neighborhood boys because he was so small. The gull tells him his past and tells him that he should use size against his enemies. So when a large neighborhood boy attacks him, he defeats the boy without throwing a punch. He develops more and more confidence, but he is...