Odysseus Risky Decisions In Homer's Odyssey

The Odyssey written by Homer highlights the character development of Odysseus, the epic hero, in his journey of self-discovery. Odysseus is accredited with many strong traits including his nobility, smarts, and bravery. Having one tragic flaw, being his arrogance, was put to the test throughout his heroic journey. Homer stripped the protagonist of his arrogance as the story goes on, by giving him many challenges, giving dire consequences for his mistakes, and allowing him to continue to overcome obstacles. The main purpose of Odysseus’ journey was to reach his home as a humbled man. The hero’s journey can be used as a way to look at life’s morals. The reader is able to see the protagonist continue to make mistakes, because of his arrogance and continue to be punished by the gods. Once he overcame this, he is greatly awarded with the security of his home. This essay will analyze the arrogance of Odysseus along with his extraordinary traits, the molding of his identity, and his new found lesson of humility.

In addition, Odysseus was not the only person who made bad decisions. Odysseus’s men, having led to believe Odysseus was hiding treasure, made another one of the worst decisions in this epic. Odysseus’s men thought that the bag of winds he had received from Aeolus was really a bag of treasures that he was saving for himself. Stricken with greed, the men opened the bag of winds which sent them back to Aeolus’s island. If the men would have had trust in Odysseus and believed him, they would never have even thought about opening the bag, and they would have gotten home right then, instead of taking another five years.

Odysseus’s arrogance is shown throughout the poem, but it is clearly shown during his time with a cyclops named Polyphemus. When Odysseus and his men enter a dangerous cave because of their leader’s foolish curiosity and meets Polyphemus, Odysseus says “It was our luck to come here; here we stand,/ beholden for your help, or any gifts/ you give-as custom is to honor strangers,” (256-268). Here Odysseus is practically demanding that the cyclops treat him and his men with courtesy just because he is a guest. His arrogance and pride makes them stay with the dangerous cyclops even though they had a perfect chance for escaping from cyclops at the very beginning before the conversation even started. If only they quickly left with some cheese or nothing at all, Odysseus wouldn’t have lost so many men. Because of Odysseus’s arrogance, six of his men were eaten by the cyclops. Another example when Odysseus arrogance is shown was just

Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey, tells the journey of Odysseus where he faces many perilous challenges. Throughout the challenges he displays the type of character he is within the episodes, "I am Laertes' Son" and "The Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis." Homer uses indirect characterization to illustrate Odysseus' arrogant and loyal character. First, Odysseus is shown to be quite arrogant. After surviving through many perils Odysseus has finally come to a king's court and has begun to tell his tale and he is shown to think quite high and mighty of himself Odysseus says that, "Men hold me / formidable for guile in peace and war / this fame has gone abroad to the sky's rim" (127-129).

Odysseus is changed as a man, becoming less arrogant and prideful along the way. Near the beginning of the tale, Odysseus lets his arrogance get to him, saying to Polyphemus, “If I could take your life I would and take your time away, and hurl you down to hell!” (Homer 774). This comes back to cost Odysseus and his crew dearly. Closer to the end, Odysseus is forced to stay humble, even when assaulted with a stool by a suitor. It is apparent that Odysseus has learned from his mistake as his journey goes on. Odysseus’ past experiences with arrogance have changed him, forcing him to become more humble.

Another case of his pride blinding Odysseus had no leadership or control over his men: “Temptation had its way with my companions, and they untied the bag.” (Book X, lines 52-53). Odysseus could not control his men, and this caused the whole ship to be blown back to Aiolia. Also as a result of his pride, Odysseus loses the entire Ithacan fleet. His hubris blinds his sense of judgment and as a result, kills two generations of Ithacans. His ego and selfishness makes him lose all of his men, and makes him an antihero.

Thesis: In the novel “The Odyssey” Homer displays the main character Odysseus, the shepherd of men, with god like qualities which clouds his judgement and sense of superiority that he will never transpire to respect the other warriors through his harsh tones.

During his stay with the Cyclops, Odysseus heroically saves his men from death, but during this encounter he demonstrates the character flaw of selfishness. On his

Odysseus frequently displays hubris as a result of his tremendous courage and justifiable pride throughout books 9-12 of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, although this flaw reveals that even heroes can have imperfections. For instance, concealing his identity is key to Odysseus defeating the Cyclops, however his arrogance leads him to reveal himself as a “raider of cities” (9.561), demonstrating his desire to be recognized for his destructive power. Furthermore, even though he only flatters himself, Odysseus successfully motivates his men in the face of yet another threat, by boasting that his “tactics saved [them] all” (12.230), as if his actions alone rescued the rest of his crewmates. Odysseus’ crew admires him for his fearlessness, and they

Odysseus within this quote takes it upon himself to act selfish and put himself and more importantly other lives in danger just because he is a bit curious and selfish. When on the island of Circe, Odysseus again becomes stubbornly selfish when he has to go rescue half of his shipmates after they turned into pigs by Circe. After he rescues Odysseus and his men are then invited to join Circe at her palace. But one of the shipmates named Eurylochus refuses and warns Odysseus that Circe will harm them once again. “She’ll turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions made to guard that palace of hers, by force, I tell you, just as the Cyclops trapped our comrades in his lair with hotheaded Odysseus right beside them all, thanks to this man’s rashness they died too!”

In the Epic story “The Odyssey” by Homer, Odysseus flaw is that he Is an arrogant person. He travels all around acting like he is all that. An example of how he is an arrogant person is when he was gonna go inside the cyclops cave. An example on why it's a flaw Odysseus says “I took my twelve best men and went ahead”. Because of his actions, the consequence is that the cyclops grabs two of Odysseus men and beats their brains out spattering the floor (lines 38-39). Another example of how he is an arrogant person is when he escapes the cyclops cave and says “Cyclops, if ever mortal man inquire… tell him Odysseus, raider of cities took your eye” (lines 26-30). Because of his actions the consequence is he made poseidon god of the ocean mad and

Odysseus has many decisions that he had to make on the journey. He had to make very tough ones and some of them were very smart. Today I am going to tell you about the three best decisions that I think he made.

Through out the poem, Odysseus encounters many obstacles that he could have eluded but he had to make worse by staying at the situations. One of his first instances of this pride problem happened first in the chronological order the poem would happen in. Shortly after the Trojan War, Odysseus was returning home to see his family when he and his men encountered the Cicons. Filled with his own infallibility, from the success at the Trojan war, and his pride, he and his men land to raid their city. They had successful raided the city, but the warriors from the city went to get more troops from surrounding Cicons cities, all while Odysseus' men got drunk from the towns wine. Once the Cicon troops had arrived, they attacked Odysseus' men, killing half of them (92). The whole reason that the troops stopped at the Cicons land was because Odysseus' pride lead him to do so. This pride lead to him risking the life's of his men, just to show off. He wanted to make it known that he could do anything, which ended up working against him. This is not the one time Odysseus risked his men's life for his own pride. He and his men had encountered some difficulties, that eventually lead them to the land of the Cyclopes. The Cyclopes were known for being "lawless and inhumane... {they} neither plant nor sow... have no laws nor assemblies of the people... each is lord and master in his family" (93). The only reasons that the crew needed to land on the island was to land for a short time and to get food. Yet, Odysseus wanted to take some men to explore to find some of the Cyclopes to find out if they were "uncivilized savages or a hospitable and humane race" (94). So he and his men explore the island and find a cave full of cheese and lambs, which the men wanted to take some of and leave, but Odysseus refused to let them leave without "see[ing] th

An individual's character traits heavily influence the type of behaviour they portray, this is evident in the epic poem “The Odyssey” written by Homer. The brave and assiduous Odysseus displays many admirable traits such as selflessness and intelligence, even though at times his characteristics and actions like his undying arrogance inflicted emotional and physical pain to those around him, they were unintentional and failed to ruin the image of the protagonist Odysseus during his many excursions.

Starting off, its very important to mention that everyone has an ego and it varies with how “big” it is. Odysseus had a big ego and would be considered very arrogant during his time. Even though it was very common for a lot of greek warriors to have arrogance, just like today, having too much self-love can end in a really terrible matter. Odysseus is a great example because during his journey in book nine him and his crew were trapped by a cyclops in his den. The cyclops would eat a man every night until one night odysseus had a plan. Him and his crew blinded the cyclops and fled to the ship. As they escape onto the boat, Odysseus yells to the cyclops, “If ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye: Laertes’ son, whose home’s on Ithaka,” (Book 9:549-553). With pride in his heart, gloating to the cyclops wasn’t necessary, in fact, it shouldn't have even been said. Little did Odysseus