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Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

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Odysseus has a problem with his ego. He is an arrogant and cocky person, who thinks he can get away with anything without consequences. Polyphemus and Poseidon show him that this assumption is wrong. Polyphemus is a cyclops and the son of Poseidon. He lives on a far off island where he tends to his goats and lives alone. Odysseus stops at Polyphemus's island on his journey home and decides to go into his cave. Odysseus and twelve of his men met a savage cyclops who, by the time their ‘visit’ is over, has eaten six of them. To escape the cave Odysseus blinds Polyphemus. But because Odysseus can’t do something without recognition, he tells Polyphemus his name. Polyphemus then uses this information to beg to his father, Poseidon, to set a curse …show more content…

He had his treasure and he and his men. But soon his boat sails off course, and he comes upon the Cyclop's island. Odysseus had heard the tales of them, how they were "lawless brutes" (215). But Odysseus never to turn away an adventure to add to his story decides to endanger his men and go up to one of their caves. The men choose to eat his cheese, which the cyclops had worked hard on, and wait for him to come back so they could demand a guest gift. Odysseus requests a guest gift from Polyphemus, the cyclops, but doesn't deserve one because he is not a good guest. Odysseus is not in need of help he already has twelve ships with meat and wine waiting for him to come back on an offshore island, he didn't need the Cyclop's treasures, he only desired them. In response to Odysseus's rudeness, Polyphemus eats two of the twelve men in the cave. While cannibalism is savage-like and grotesque, Polyphemus was just reacting to have strange, rude men come into his house, eat his food and then demand treasures from …show more content…

Even though Odysseus after the island is a good leader and tries to help his men survive, he is the reason they need help surviving in the first place. Once Polyphemus tells Poseidon to place a curse on him. Polyphemus says, “Hear me Poseidon… / … grant the Odysseus, raider of cities, / Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca,/ never reaches home again. Or if his is fated to see/ his people once again and reach his well-built house/ and his native country, let him come home late/ and a broken man - all his shipmates lost,/ alone...”(228, 585-594, his men are doomed. They are not as quick-witted or as smart on their feet like Odysseus; they fall for things ordinary men would fall for, like eating food when starving at Helio’s island. But the men wouldn't even have had to go into these dangerous and unfortunate circumstances if Odysseus hadn’t felt the need to brag to Polyphemus about blinding

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