Odysseus's Revenge

I think that Odysseus' actions were justified because of the actions of the wooers. Without any conformation of him being dead, they first tried to woo his wife. That is very disrespectful and angered Odysseus greatly. Also, the suitors show no respect for his house and belongings. They overtake his house without even thinking about the man of the house, which is disrespectful.

Second of all, he was also justified in his actions because while Odysseus was in Ithaca as the beggar the wooers were making a secret plot to kill his son Telemachus. The wooers believed that if they wanted Penelope to be one of their wives they would have to kill Telemachus. Odysseus not knowing that at the time started to figure it out when all the wooers started to target Telemachus a lot more often. Causing him to become even

When many people get hurt, emotionally, physically, or even verbally, it triggers chemicals in your brain, and whether or not you want to, it makes you want to get revenge just so that you know the other person can hurt just as much as you did. OR you’re just mean and cruel. It all comes down to whether or not you take your anger, sadness or frustration out in a healthy, kind, and careful way. After Odysseus revealed his identity as a beggar, and began hating on all of those people who were involved in taking his home away, and devising a plan to massacre the suitors and reign control of Ithaca, he automatically just made a situation ten times worse than it had to be. The punishment made were way too severe. There must have been so many people that did not deserve it. What Odysseus did was not justified.

Odysseus’ journey home was a long difficult venture which resulted in the loss of some of his crew, due to various monsters. Once Odysseus finally returned to his kingdom, he was disguised as a beggar and said that he was a friend of Odysseus. After a few days of witnessing his house be trashed by suitors, he revealed himself to his son, Telemachus, who the suitors planned to kill. Odysseus and Telemachus came up with a plan to kill all of the suitors while at the feast they were planning to hold. Penelope was also planning on holding a competition to figure out which one of the suitors she should marry.

The change in Odysseus’ mercifulness towards innocent women accentuates his grasp on self-possession. Before, Odysseus did not show mercy towards anyone, especially women. When his army stormed a town, he himself states, “Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women, to make…equal shares to all” (146). When Odysseus enslaves the women, Homer seems to particularly emphasize the negative quality of mercilessness in him as a raider of cities. Odysseus does not feel any compassion when he enslaves innocent women handing them off to men as if they are objects. Moreover, Odysseus plunders and enslaves without any self-control, which highlights that he is glorifying and enjoying himself. Destroying a city, killing many people, and raping innocent women evidently shows the immense amount of self-possession that Odysseus completely lacks. Later on, Odysseus seems to change his stance on mercy. After he kills every suitor, Odysseus tells Eurykleia, “‘To glory over slain men is no piety…Your part is now to tell me of the women…who dishonored me, and the innocent’” (422). Homer accentuates the change in Odysseus with respect to his mercifulness towards innocent women. Rather than disregarding innocent women, he now differentiates between them and the dishonorable. Furthermore, he himself says that it is impious to glory over murdered men, which reveals the transformation

Eurymachus promised Odysseus that if he does not kill them they will give back to him have they have taken while he was gone plus more. Eurymachus told Odysseus “So spare us, who are your own people. And afterward we will make amends to you by a public levy for all the food and drink that has been consumed in your house. We will each bring a contribution to the value of twenty oxen, and repay you in bronze and gold, till your heart softens. Meanwhile, no one could blame you for your anger.”(Odyssey, Book 22, line 54-59). The Suitors are willing to pay Odysseus for everything they have done plus more, but he does not accept their payment whatsoever. Odysseus said “Eurymachus, not if you made over all your patrimony to me, everything you possess, and anything else that may come your way, would I keep my hands from killing until you Suitors had paid for all your transgressions. The choice now lies before you, either to face me and fight, or else to run and see if you can escape death and doom, though I do not think any of you will get away alive.”(Odyssey, Book 22, line 60-67). Odysseus’ mind is made up. He does not care what the suitors have to say he is going to kill them even though the suitors are willing to ask for forgiveness, but that’s not enough for Odysseus and he proceeds to kill all of them. Eurymachus see that and speaks up “My friends, this man will not refrain

In the closing passages of the Odyssey, the suitors and disloyal servants are punished for their crimes against Odysseus, and it does indeed seem that the death penalty doled out by Odysseus is harsh. However, at this particular period of Greek history, it was expected that each man take his own vengeance against his trespassers as there was no judicial system in place to deal with these problems at the time, therefore it seems justified that as their crimes stretched over a period of nearly 20 years and were directly against xenia, the law of Zeus, that Odysseus take his revenge as he wishes.

In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is away from his home, Ithaca, for twenty years. Despite the low odds of Odysseus ever returning home after such a time, those in Ithaca were expected to remain loyal to Odysseus as they awaited his return. While this was a daunting task, those who accomplished it were heavily rewarded, while those who didn’t were met with death. Upon his return, Odysseus promised Eumaeus, the loyal swineherd, that he would find him a wife, grant him property next to his own, and that he would become one of the “comrades to Telemachus, brothers from then on” (21.243). His own wife Penelope remained loyal for all of the twenty years of Odysseus’ absence, never once giving in to the many suitors who invited themselves into her home and spent years vying for her hand. While she probably would have been killed by Odysseus if she had been unfaithful to him, perhaps her greatest reward was just being able to be with her husband again and being able to live. The suitors, however, were not so lucky. Odysseus, along with the help of the goddess Athena, carefully plotted and executed the death of every suitor that entered his home and gone after his wife. With the help of his son, the swineherd, and the goddess, Odysseus took down every suitor, until “the suitors lay in heaps, corpse covering corpse” (22.414). The resulting death of every disloyal character in the epic

When Odysseus returned home to his wife and son, he took a very brutal approach to rid his home of the suitors who had invaded his household.  This revenge was also taken out upon the servants and maids who had been unfaithful to Penelope and had slept with the suitors.  Some may say this punishment was too harsh, and made Odysseus less than an honorable man.  However, Odysseus’s actions were justifiable.

Near the end of this chapter when he has finished off all of the suitors, (mostly with the aid of Athena), Odysseus feels he has prevailed as the winner, righted the wrong. At one point he exclaims "these men the doom of the gods has brought low, and their own indecent acts. They'd no regard for any man who chanced come their way. And so thanks to their reckless work, they met their shameful fate."(435-438). The irony of this quote is the fact that he is

In each story that has been created, there has always been the main protagonist of the story, in this case, the hero. The hero of the story would be placed through trials and tribulations towards the victory that they desire. In the Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus returns home after battling in the Trojan War for ten years, losing all of his men in brutal ways, and coming home to see 108 men; the suitors, in his house, eating his food, sleeping in his house, and harassing his family: Penelope and Telemachus. After winning the challenge for Penelope’s hand in marriage and winning the kingdom, Odysseus and his allies murder all of the suitors but two of them. Before engaging the suitors, one of his nurses, the one that helped raised him as a child, informs Odysseus that twelve of the fifty other woman in the castle betrayed him by developing relationships with the suitors. Knowing this information; after murdering the suitors, Odysseus forces the twelve woman to clean up the blood and corpses of their lovers. After cleaning up the remains of the men, the woman are hung for committing relations with the men. Odysseus was treated horribly by a Melanthius, the man who taunted

Not only the suitor treat her as an object but her son as well. He feels she does not know what she doing or lack of knowledge about how to run the kingdom. Odysseus still treat her as a innocent child and know she could not harm the maids.

The symbol of darkness is vividly portrayed throughout the play Macbeth that is written by William Shakespeare. Darkness played an important role towards the tragic ending of the play. It transformed many characters in this play into dark and evil roles. Macbeth is certainly not an exception. Darkness transformed Macbeth into a completely different person. This is proved through his actions, Lady Macbeth’s persuasion and his supernatural beliefs. The play starts off with Macbeth being portrayed as a magnificent war hero. He is even given the title of Thane of Cawdor, but by the end of the play karma has caught up to Macbeth and he is killed because of the cloud of darkness that he was surrounded with. Throughout the play, Macbeth’s actions,

Lizeth Marin Honors Introduction to Literature Period 3 18 April 2008 Odysseus: Hero or Villain? Heading home, to Ithaca, Odysseus is faced upon many obstacles that he and his men try to overcome, but in the end substantiate that Odysseus is a villain. “The old soldier in despair: He has spent ten years (seven of them as Calypso’s not entirely unwillingly captive) trying to get home” (652, summary). Evidence proves that Odysseus is a villain, because he tries to convince that he was kept unwillingly by Calypso. However, it is true that Odysseus was kept as Calypso’s captive for a time. Yet he can still be judged as a villain, because he does not just stay as a prisoner, no, he assists Calypso by being with her for the pleasures that

With the development of market economy, China is accelerating its steps to join the world family in commerce and cultural partnership. With the recent accession to the WTO, the long-awaited Olympic Games in Beijing, China has made learning English a national priority. English, with its unique status, has been taught in China for more than 100 years. Today, English is becoming more and more popular. It is a compulsory course for all Chinese students from primary school to university.