Personal Responsibility and the Gods’ Role in the Odyssey Essays

In Homer’s Odyssey, the idea of fate is more significant than the idea and sense of duty. Odysseus’s journey begins when Poseidon learns that Odysseus blinded his Cyclops son, Polyphemous while trying to escape from his capture. This enrages the already hot-tempered sea god, damning Odysseus, his men, and his voyage. Poseidon attempts to delay and keep Odysseus from his home, Ithaca. His anger towards Odysseus is so great that Zeus has to step in to save him from the sea-god. Zeus, after Poseidon complains to him about the Phaenecians aiding Odysseus, states “Since for Odysseus now I vowed that he his home should win through many a misery yet utterly bereft not his return; for such your purpose was and decree.” (Homer, Book 13, st. 45) Zeus, in the Odyssey, acts as the hand of fate by preventing Poseidon from further stalling Odysseus’s return home. This is unlike Jupiter in the Aeneid, who dispatches Mercury to remind Aeneus of

All their afflictions come from us, we hear. And what of their own failings?" (Homer 210). Zeus’s take on the way that man blames everything on the Gods is that, truly, it isn’t the Gods’ fault. It is almost like the Gods think that man should take responsibility of their own doings, and not just blame everything on the Gods. In that same tirade, Zeus questions Aigìsthos, because mankind blames the Gods for everything, yet Aigìsthos didn’t take the advice of the well-known messenger Hermes; "We gods had warned him, send down Hermes, our most observant courier, to say: .... Friendly advice-but would Aigìsthos take it?" (Homer 210). So, mankind blames everything on the Gods, yet when presented with advice given by the Gods to man, in this case, Aigìsthos, he doesn’t take it. Odysseus’s fate is still to go home, but it isn’t just because the Gods made his supposed fate to be so, it is because Odysseus is the loyal hero that made the faithful decision.

Finally, Odysseus is also a selfish leader who is full of hubris. An example of

   Throughout literature characters have relied upon entities greater then themselves to furnish them with aid as they meet the many challenges they must face. The Odyssey is a tale of Odysseus’ epic journey and the many obstacles that bar his return home. But Odysseus is not alone in this struggle and receives aid from many gods, especially the clear-eyed goddess Athena. There are times when Odysseus beseeches the gods for aid, but other times he is too foolhardy to receive aid from even the immortal gods. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus’ journey revolves around the cyclical phases of his dependence, independence and his return to reliance upon the gods’ aid.

The most powerful female force in The Odyssey is the goddess Athena. She, more than anyone else, brings about Odysseus’ homecoming. The poem opens with her pleading with Zeus to take pity on Odysseus. Zeus issues the command to Calypso to free Odysseus. Athena guides Odysseus every step of his voyage to Ithaca. She tells Odysseus that it is she “who always stands beside [him], shields [him] in every

Odysseus thinks that his reasoning are final and his activities are constantly just and right, although he frequently allows his ego control his rational thinking, resulting harm to his group and messing with the gods’s plans. His men could have went back home Securely for it is the desire of Athena and the other heavenly gods who surround to her in Mount Olympus, however Odysseus takes it to himself to outrage and blind Polyphemus, the monstrous son of Poseidon, adored by his dad yet abhorred by the people, In this way distrusting their whole arrangement . Subsequent to being blinded by the heroine, Polyphemus tosses huge pieces of rocks at Odysseus's ship, nearly obliterating them at the same time. But instead of retreating for safety, Odysseus keeps on provoking Polyphemus and “[calls] out to the cyclopes again, with [his] men hanging all over [him] begging him not to”(Book 9, 491-492). His feeling of pride and presumption influences to disregard the requests of his people even in these critical circumstances . He will fulfill his own feeling of interest and pleasure without thinking of the result it would have on his crew. Despite the fact that he is bound to get away from all passings and assaults, his group isn’t so blessed. Their lives are in mortal peril since Odysseus considers them as child sheeps who should forfeit their lives for him when the circumstances comes, much the same as how mortals make conciliatory offerings of sheeps for the heavenly gods. He is willing to fulfill his own feeling of interest without thinking of his groups lives or their suppositions and is regularly infuriated when they negate his request. If they hurt his sense of pride and self-importance and pomposity , Odysseus will be overcome with outrage and

The gods seemed to favor both Gilgamesh and Odysseus because of their semi-godlike characteristics. Gilgamesh is two-thirds god and the King of Uruk. While Odysseus is not formally a god, he does possess the cunning and physique necessary to be a god, along with being the King of Ithaca. Odysseus experiences numerous near-death events, yet always overcomes the ordeals without any harm. He succeeds in blinding the Cyclopes to escape their island; goes to the underworld and back; avoids being killed by the Laistrygonians; protects himself and his men from the Sirens' songs; navigates between Scylla and Charybdis; and heeds the advice of Teiresias not

In this book the little girl who we all know as Athena even gives Odysseus advice, ?A cheerful man does best in every enterprise, even a stranger? (Book 7). The interference by Athena shows how much she likes Odysseus and how much she wants him to make it home to the suitors.

The Odyssey by Homer consists of many things, like Odysseus being very clever, but because of his curiosity and pride he had told Cyclops his name. That caused Cyclops to beg his father Poseidon to never let Odysseus return home. One of his countless flaws of Odysseus. His character influences many of his men and family. He has caused himself to lose many of his comrades . For example, when they entered Cyclops´s cave . It has drove him to many different lands plenty of his men dying, also from them being curious. For instance Aeolus gave Odysseus a gift of wind. His crew thought he had something like treasures hidden in the sack . Their stupidity led them unleashing the winds creating a storm called for chaos.

Athena and Leucothea, two of the most influential women in the story, play a prominent role in the story, for they help Odysseus complete his journey! Athena and Leucothea work together to save Oddyseus’s life when he is drowning out at sea. Odysseus had just gotten off the island of Calypso and was on his way home when Poseidon, the God of the sea created a massive storm and almost killed Odysseus. Poseidon was furious with Odysseus because he had blinded his son Polyphemus. Luckily, a mortal named Leucothea comes to his rescue. As Odysseus is drowning, Leucothea yells over the storm, “‘Strip off those clothes and leave your craft for the winds to hurl, and swim for it now, you must, strike out with your arms for landfall there, Phaeacian land where destined safety waits. Here, take this scarf, tie it around your waist—it is immortal.’” (Book #5) Athena then plays a role by helping him get through the storm to the land safely. If it weren’t for these two powerful and wise women, nobody would have heard the story of Odysseus and his completion of

The epic poem The Odyssey, written by Homer, centers around the main protagonist Odysseus and his long journey back home. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, returns home after defeating the Trojans in a ten year war. On his way back, he angers Poseidon, god of the sea, by blinding his son, Polyphemus the Cyclops. Due to Odysseus’ actions, Poseidon refuses to let Odysseus reach home, and Odysseus and his crew are forced to go through a series of obstacles throughout the epic. Through this adversity, Odysseus must show his heroic attributions in order to survive. Homer portrays Odysseus as a hero by giving him characteristics such as: craftiness, loyalty, and bravery.

Throughout the Odyssey, the struggles of Odysseus are revealed to the reader through the well written epic. His journey is very difficult and he is haunted with the loss of his entire crew and seemingly impossible task of getting home to his family. While journeying homewards, Odysseus makes the mistake of harming the Cyclops, who happens to be Poseidon's son. Poseidon is so angry at Odysseus for the harm he inflicted on the Cyclops, that through the influence of all powerful Zeus, he punishes Odysseus along with his other children, the Phaeacians, who can be seen to parallel as well as contrast with the Cyclops.

Odysseus was an arrogant yet successful warrior during the Trojan War shipwrecked at sea due to him angering the gods with his arrogance and selfishness

Using divine intervention details, epic similes, and descriptive epithets, Homer the author of The Odyssey, in Book VI elaborates on the idea that the Gods hand out fortune and pain to mortals, primarily seen through the help Odysseus received in his successful odyssey home. The power of the Greek Gods and Goddess’ is limitless as their powers are supernatural and can control the fate of mortals.

In various encounters throughout the book, Athena, the goddess of wisdom influences the lives of Odysseus’s family in order to improve their fate due to her favoritism for the persistent mariner attempting to return home and respect of his cleverness. Her preference to Odysseus is seen in the beginning of Book 1 stating to her father, Zeus that she is concerned of the whereabouts of Odysseus and pleads for support to deliver him