How we view our heroes can change from case to case, and as time wears on. Athlete dying young and Ulysses incorporate this idea into the poems. The way we have always viewed our heroes is as people who can't die, and are never tarnished; yet, in these two poems we see exactly that. Our young athlete was at the top of his game, and at the height of his life when he was struck down dead in his prime. In Ulysses, Odysseus is left to live to long, and is a mere shell of the heroic character he was in the Odyssey. While it may be uncomfortable to examine, both poems do look at tarnished heroes, giving the reader an alternate view to what we normally see in our heroes.
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