Odysseus Should Not Get The Award Essay

Loyalty and Betrayal You have been trapped in a Vietnamese camp for 3 months. They have tortured you every day trying to get you to reveal secrets about your government. You endure the pain, and with clenched teeth you keep saying no. When you are at the brink of death.

Odysseus makes some substantial mistakes, thus leading to the failure to his men. Odysseus shows extremely inadequate leadership qualities throughout the story. When Odysseus is on the journey to Ithaka, he neglects to let his crew know how long they will be staying on each island. He also neglects to let them know of the journey that lies ahead. This is very poor leadership in the eyes of his crew members. The crew relies on their leader to be honest with them when it comes to situations such as these. They expect Odysseus to make decisions for the well being of the crew. When Odysseus receives advice, even if it is helpful he tends to ignore it. He thinks he is the most intelligent human being, even more so than the gods. A prime example of this is when Odysseus receives advice from Kirke about Scylla. Kirke tells Odysseus not to fight Scylla, yet he chooses to anyway. Another example of Odysseus’s ignorance toward people is when Eurylochus tells him not to go onto Kirke’s island because he knows the crew would be turned into swine. Odysseus again chooses to ignore the intelligent advice given by the gods, and finds out that hard way that Eurylochus was correct. After all that Odysseus has done to the crew, it is true to

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

In my own opinion Odysseus shouldn't be nominated for a leadership award because, he leads his crew to their death, had bad intensions with a girl that wasn't his wife, and was reckless with all of the thing he did and is going to do. Odysseus didn't know what he was doing or thinking when he was on the island with Circe. Even though he didn't know what he was doing and didn't want to do it some part of him told himself to go and do it. Plus, with all of this other stuff going on he got a dozen crew members stuck in a cave with a Cyclops.

What kind of human kills for their own good? In the bloody journey of the Odyssey many men were killed by the hands of Odysseus himself. A lot of the men that died were killed by Odysseus but there was a good number of them that were killed by the actions Odysseus made. When it comes down to it Odysseus was wrong for killing the suitors. Odysseus killed the suitors out of his own insecurity, selfishness, and of course out of rage for what was done to him. But what was Odysseus expecting after being gone for 10 years? For everyone to just hold off on their lives just to wait to see if he will be coming back? Odysseus’ actions were not justified.

When Odysseus was being a caring leader he wasn’t making his men do anything that he wouldn’t have done himself, so this shows that he wasn’t putting himself before an of his men who were doing good things for him. Along with that, Odysseus volunteered to do all of the “dirty work” so his men wouldn’t have to, which was nice for his men. While Odysseus was a good leader at times, he also had his downs as a leader. After Odysseus and his men made their great escape, they started taunting the Cyclops, which then came back for revenge, from Zeus, on his journey home. He and his men also took advantage of the hospitality that the Cyclops gave him and used it for their plan.

To start, Odysseus’ pride is shown during one of his first trials he overcomes when trying to get home: the Cyclops. This is part of the beginning of the Tests, Allies, and Enemies stage of his Hero’s Journey. After he had successfully defeated the Cyclops with his guile, he and his men successfully escape and are making a run for their ships. Odysseus taunts the Cyclops, despite his crew members’ warnings. Odysseus then says, “I would not heed them in my glorying spirit, but let my anger

Throughout the time being on this island full of cyclops, Odysseus has showed his ability to think of a well put together plan. The next way Odysseus shows he is a great leader was how quick he was to react to a situation. In book X, lines 137-146 Odysseus shows his skill of reacting quickly when they were on the island and they started getting slaughtered but Odysseus got his men out of there. There was much chaos and commotion but Odysseus figured out what he needed to do to get his men out of there quickly and still alive. He even made a quick decision to cut the rope to his own ship leaving some men behind but this in the end saved more men rather than if they had stayed trying to fight back. Also in book X, lines 287-290 Odysseus shows his skills when one of his men come running back after the other men got turned to pigs by the girl. Right as Odysseus heard of this he grabbed his bow and was about to head out. Instead of Odysseus leaving those men there and sailing away he tries to go fight

Odysseus is a walking conflict machine. Wherever he goes, something is bound to go wrong, which is turns out alright for him, because he is lucky, and helped by the Gods, but his men...not so much. When Odysseus demands a gift from Polyphemus, saying “...here we stand, beholden for your help, or any gifts you give--as custom to honor strangers.” (11). By saying this, Odysseus creates a big conflict that ends up killing many of his men. Odysseus, of course, is spared, but a lot of his men are eaten alive. They did more than Odysseus in trying to avoid this situation, but he refused, and they paid the price for it, all because they happened to be less lucky than Odysseus. Odysseus being favored by the Gods is always a huge stroke of luck when conflict rolls around, no matter the conflict. They can’t even punish him correctly. When he disobeyed their direct orders about eating Helios’s cows, the still protected him right after punishing him. When Odysseus is on the verge of death because of their punishment, and at ready to be eaten by Scylla, Homer writes, “ Never could I have passed her had not the father of gods and men, this time, kept me from her eyes.”(23). Another example of this is when Odysseus and his crew mates land on Circe’s island, he sends his men first to investigate. When before he can catch up to them, a God stops him, and warns him of a

In The Odyssey, Odysseus demonstrates the qualities of a poor leader because his arrogance and pride interferes with his judgement to make wise wisdoms, thus putting his entire crew in danger. When Odysseus and his crew escape the one-eyed cyclops, Polyphemus, Odysseus is overcome with triumph as he and his deceived the cyclops by securing themselves to the stomachs of the monster’s flock of sheep. His escape plan proved successful, and he then proceeded to untie his men from the grazing sheep, and make haste to their ship. Odysseus taunts Polyphemus as he and his crew begin to sail away. “You shameless cannibal (IX.534),” said Odysseus to the cyclops, who became filled with rage. Odysseus’s crew sense the will of Polyphemus to wreck havoc, and thus, ask

When Odysseus’ crew were all dead he said “... all his companions, who will never see their home again.”(895). Odysseus reminds himself of the brave men that were killed in his journey. This matters because he made them believe that they were all going to get home alive from his journey, but ended up getting killed. Another example is found when Odysseus found two men willing to fight on his side and so he said “ I promise marriages to both, and cattle, and houses near mine.”(937). He was promising them things in return for fighting on his side. This wouldn’t be his first time making people believe something that wasn’t true. His deceitfulness caused multiple people to die and manipulating people to help

Odysseus angirly exclaims at the cyclops,” Zeus will avenge the unoffending guest”( The Cyclops 260-261). Odysseus gets full of courage and pride when calling out that he could have Zeus come after him not even thinking of the destruction that could come from saying that to the wrong person. Odysseus second detriment from anger is shown when he attacks the Cyclops when he did not have to stop and get stuck in the Cyclops cave. In the story leading up to The Cyclops episode people know that Odysseus and Poseidon do not get along so his anger was taken out on the Cyclops. Odysseus tells the Cyclops,” Poseidon Lord, who sets the earth atremble, broke it up on the rocks at your land’s end.”(273-274). If Poseidon did in fact crash his ship then there has to be a dislike between the to leading the readers to believe he is going to harm the Cyclops out of anger. Odysseus third and final detriment through evil thoughts in the episode “The Cyclops” is shown through his boastful attitude when he puts his crew at risk. Odysseus tries to exclaim again across the ocean,“Now when i cupped my hands I heard the crew in low voices protesting.”(492-493). Odysseus is being very boastful wanting the Cyclops to know who he was and how he was better not even considering the fact that he could get his whole crew

Odysseus is a courageous leader because he saves his crew in combat many times. One way Odysseus shows he is a courageous leader is by proving his worth in combat. Odysseus is obviously a good fighter because he survived the Trojan War, if he had not have been a

In the beginning of the story, it seems as if Odysseus has a lot of respect for his crew. That is, until he decided upon bad decisions later on. For example, when Odysseus ventured to the land of the dead to speak with Teiresias, the blind prophet, he was warned of what could happen if he ate Helios’ cattle. He said, “You will find the grazing herds of Helios,” and “avoid these kine” (677). Unfortunately, Odysseus never told his crew of the precautions of eating the cattle. Therefore, they were oblivious of their unpreventable doom. In hindsight, if Odysseus would have just told them, they would have known that they would make it out alive. Odysseus also had an extremely hard time being loyal to his kind and devoted wife, Penelope. First off, he was held captive by Calypso for ten years, “Seven of them as Calypso’s not entirely unwilling captive” (652). Soon after that, he proceeded to have an affair

Odysseus was a dreadful leader by the reason of, Odysseus did not make intelligent decisions. Odysseus’ men told Odysseus to leave the land of cyclops, but Odysseus did not want to listen and said “No, I want to see a cyclops in person”. Odysseus and his men ended up getting stuck with a cyclops in a cave which they had a hard time getting out of. For example, “My men came pressing round me breading, why not take the cheeses, get them stowed, comeback, and make a run for it?”. Odysseus makes this really great decision and says “I refused and I wish to see the cave man, and see what he has to offer”. Another piece of evidence that can be provided to prove that Odysseus is a bad leader, after Odysseus got the Cyclops mad,