Odysseus Selfish Essay

Appearing as an epic hero in The Odyssey, Odysseus is an iconic figure in ancient Greek culture and stories. He is portrayed as mighty, great, and powerful. However, what every one sees or thinks they see is just what’s on the surface. “Moralists grew angry in disputing whether he was a ‘good’ man or not-good, that is to say, according to the varying principles” (Stanford). Stanford is trying to explain that depending on people’s values they see or portray Odysseus in many different ways. It is hard to say whether he is bad or good because the author of The Odyssey, Homer, “ Is content to portray a man of many turns” (Stanford). Homer intended to portray Odysseus as this complex character that is not just one sided,

Odysseus, the main character of Homer’s The Odyssey, is not a hero. Because, although he may fight for the good at times, he displays more hypocritical, irrational, and selfish actions than he does heroic actions.

Odysseus and his men sail to another land - Aiolia Island, the home of Aiolos Hippotadês, the wind king. Aiolos plays host to Odysseus and his crew for a month. Staying for this length of time suggests Odysseus’ desire to return home is

Throughout history, tales of great heros, gruesome monsters, beautiful enchantresses, and mighty gods have been told. One such tale that is very important to the greeks is the Odyssey. The main character, “Odysseus, was very important to the greeks because he was relatable to the greeks because he was a mortal man who relied not on superhuman strength, but the power of his own mind” (Mr. Carroll). Although clever, Odysseus has many flaws, and because he was greedy, arrogant, and he lets his crew die, Odysseus is not a hero.

The Odyssey is a Greek story written by Homer about Odysseus, a greek soldier who is on a long journey that includes fighting monsters from greek mythology and dangerous quests so that he can make it back home to his wife and son. A hero is a main protagonist of a story and is typically courageous, strong, honorable, and intelligent. Odysseus is a hero because he is a selfless, reliable, and unselfish leader trying to get his men home.

Odysseus runs into many challenges on his way back to Ithaca but he emerges victorious. Odysseus

While Odysseus is shown to be capable of thinking through his plans and is able to lead others, he is arrogant.

In the epic poem the Odyssey by Homer, the main character Odysseus is lost on a island with a goddess Calypso. Odysseus has to go through many obstacles to find his way back home. Some of the things he has to do to get home hurts other people. Odysseus does things throughout his journey that clearly show he is not a heroic figure. Odysseus has proven many times that he is not a heroic figure. His actions convey that he is not heroic at all. Some of the reasons why Odysseus is not heroic at all is because, he destroys people's homes, lies to his men, and cheats on his wife.

In Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, a war hero named Odysseus spends ten years attempting to return home to his family. During his journey, Odysseus faces many challenges that test both his courage and commitment to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. He must fight off both physical challenges, like monsters, as well as the emotional challenges of temptation. Throughout the course of the poem, Odysseus makes choices that can be considered good or bad, depending on what traits a society values. Due to the cultural differences between the Ancient Greek world and modern American society, it may be difficult to determine whether Odysseus should be considered a hero or not. Some of these lines are not entirely clear, especially when it comes

Odysseus faces many challenges during his passage to his home. For example, he encounters a cyclops and is also forced to choose between unavoidably losing 6 of his best men, or taking a huge risk and possibly losing all of

The Odyssey is an epic by the ancient Greek poet Homer that tells the story of Odysseus’s journey to get back to his home on Ithaca after the Trojan War. Odysseus’s main goal is to return home with his crew on their ship. Odysseus loses everything after he couldn't control his crew and himself. Odysseus has to face many challenges to get home. In the story, Odysseus was sometimes at the point where it seemed like all hope was lost and nothing was possible.

In the Cyclops cave, they want to kill him while he’s asleep, but Odysseus says “...if I killed him we perished there as well, for we could never move his ponderous doorway slab aside” (Hom. 207-209). This proves that without the Cyclops, they can’t get out of the cave, so they use a different strategy. Book nine of The Odyssey states “...straight forward they sprinted, lifted it, and rammed it deep in his crater eye” (Hom. 9. Lines 290-292). Instead, Odysseus has his men stab him in the eye. This gets the Cyclops to let them out. Odysseus also climbs the giant cliff, drinks a potentially poisonous drink, and sleeps with Circe just to get his men

A hero is someone who puts others first, is courageous, and selfless. Odysseus is not a hero, because he deceived his men just so he could get home, and he was selfish and glory-hungry. After Odysseus spoke to Teiresias, he did not tell the crew anything about what the prophet said. Odysseus explained “Yet she urged me that I alone should listen to their song” (680). This blatant lie proves that Odysseus is selfish, because he didn’t let anyone else listen to their song. When on Helios’ island, Odysseus cried, “O father Zeus and Gods in bliss forever, you made me sleep away this day of mischief” (686). This statement is important because it confirms that Odysseus didn’t tell his men that they would die if they ate

Odysseus enters the cyclops Polyphemus’s cave, eats his cheese, and still expects gifts which is near the same reason Odysseus killed his suitors for, showing that he is selfish. Even though Odysseus did heroically and bravely defeat the cyclops by poking him in the eye, it was Odysseus that went looking for the cyclops in the first place. He did not stop to think about what the cyclops might do to them when they were seen and in essence went looking for trouble. He selfishly wanted to see the cyclops for himself, and did not think of the consequences that might come to his men. When asked who they were and why they had come, Odysseus replies with “It was our

The Odyssey, A Tale of Wonder Has the world ever seemed fascinating and strange, at the same time?Here’s the story, of Odysseus but briefly, on the island of Ithaca, Odysseus is petitioned to go to Troy and defeat the Trojans, and accordingly, a certain god got mad at Odysseus and wasn’t going to allow Odysseus to go home, at least for the time being. Well in Homer’s timeless epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus of Ithaca is the hero. But, what is a hero? In this case Odysseus’s heroic qualities can be described as being, loyal to his country, loyal to his family, and loyal to his gods.