Compare & Contrast Essay Outline

Compare & Contrast Essay Outline How do you make someone stronger than the strongest person? The answer is simple – don’t make him a human make him a god. In similar fashion, so goes the stories of Hercules and Thor who both were mythological gods (Hercules being a Greek Demi-God and Thor being a Norse God) and give them superhuman powers.

In Greek mythology, Hercules was most popular of all Greek heroes, famous for extraordinary strength and courage, and is depicted in statues as a muscular man carrying a large club. When he was a young man, Hercules defended Thebes from the armies of a neighboring city, Orchomenus, and was awarded with Megara, daughter of King Creon. But Hera later drove Hercules insane, and in his madness he killed his wife and children. After he had recovered his sanity, he sought purification at the court of King Eurytheus of Tiryns for 12 years. During those years Hercules performed 12 arduous labors: he killed the Nemean lion and the Hydra; caught the Erymanthian boar and the Cerynean hind; drove off stymphalian birds; cleaned the stables of Augeas; captured the Cretan bull and the horses of Diomed; made off with the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyte; killed Geryon captured Cerberus; and finally took the golden apples of Hesperides.

In Norse mythology, Thor is depicted carrying a large hammer and Thors’ exploits, including his relentless slaughter of his foes and fierce battles with the monstrous serpent Jormungandr (also known as the Mudguard Serpent)- and their foretold mutual deaths during the events of Rangnarok (which is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death in a number of major figures including Thor) – are recorded throughout sources for Norse mythology. In much the same way both Hercules and Thor, although worshiped as gods, both were properly heroes, and frequently appealed to for protection from various evils. In many of his labors, Hercules used a large club to assist him in completing his tasks and Thor used his magical hammer for defeating his enemies. On the other hand, Hercules, son of Zeus, was portrayed as a powerful, muscular man wearing a lion’s skin and relied on his extraordinary strength to help him with the many tasks he accomplished while Thor, son of Odin, is generally described as a fierce-eyed, red-haired and red-bearded, and relied heavily on his mystical hammer to achieve his victories. So in conclusion, both Hercules and Thor, being children of gods, used their extraordinary powers to defeat their enemies and establish themselves as heroes in mythological folklore. “Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find this standard is a very simple one and this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack.

Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find ourselves to admire, we are privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.” – Mark Twain