Story Of Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

In my eyes a hero is a person who shows courage, is humble, does not give up, and is someone everybody can relate to. The protagonist in “The Odyssey” by Homer, Odysseus is a hero because although he is emotional throughout the book and lets his emotions take over his actions, he displays immense courage and perseveres through his journey and hardships.

Stay on your benches and beat the deep surf with your oars!” (12. 216-223). After he and his men manage to escape the reach of Scylla and Charybdis, Eurylochus praises Odysseus for his leadership and almost godlike abilities, that of a hero’s, saying, “You’re a hard man, Odysseus, stronger than other men, and you never wear out, a real iron-man,”(12.287-289). The situation that Odysseus and his men were set in was extremely dangerous, posing an imminent threat to his journey, full of dire. Nevertheless, he disregards this and continues on, showing determination to ensure he and his shipmates are safe.

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.

Odysseus tends to make rash decisions and does not take the full brunt of the aftermath. His men gave up their lives to protect each other and the captain. Odysseus has not used their sacrifices to preserve the rest alive. He only uses his crew for his own agenda. While Odysseus is good at fabricating solutions to get out of a pinch, he is too headstrong and that cost lives. He often confers with himself on plans and heeds no warning or advice. Since Odysseus has authority over his crew, it causes his men to be caught in the “crossfire”. At the island of Polyphemus, his search party came to him. He says, “My men came pressing round me pleading, ‘Why not take these cheeses, and make a run for it? We’ll drive the kids and lambs aboard. We say put out again on good saltwater’“ (Butler 9).

What happened was that he was trying to see if that Giants were "Friend or Foe". As it would turn out they were pretty mean and brutal, but he wanted to see what the Cyclops would do if they were ever in his cave, well they found out really quick. He locked the in his cave an everyday hey would eat 2 of his men in the Moring and at night. But finally, they escaped by using a hot wooden stick and jamming it into the Cyclops's only eye. Odysseus thought he was all mighty and humble, well think again he tried to get his whole crew killed by trash talking the Cyclops, "now who do you think would do that."

There are many traits that are believed to make an individual a true hero. Some of those traits being physical strength, mental toughness kindness, compassion, bravery, and intelligence. In both today's world and during the times of ancient Greece, there is one trait that prevails among the rest, that trait is mental toughness. Both Odysseus and Chen Si hold this trait within them.

Once they passed they passed the cliffs they came to Helios island.Odysseus told his men he knew they were tried but they had to keep going.Eurlochos stood up demanding they stop and rest also to eat.Odysseus said okay but he made his men promise not to touch Helios’s cattle and sheep.After one month the men ran out of food and they were starving.His men decided to kill some of Helios’s cattle.When Helios found out he was furios and prayed to Zeus asking him to kill them Zeus said he would strike a lighnighing bolt down on Odysseus ship.So Zeus had done it.Odysseus’s men were all dead he no longer had a boat and he was now the only surviver.Odysseus made a raft and went into Charybdis’s base she took in water and spat it out.Odysseus held on to a tree while the raft went in.Odysseus had prayed to the gods until they brought him to Calypso island.In this ponit of the story stops because Alkinoos had already known of his time with the

Odysseus and his crew were in sight of the homeland they had waited so long to see, when a hand of rebel crewmen opened the bag because they thought it contained treasures, creating a great gale that blew them back to Aeolus. When Aeolus saw this he believed that Odysseus was cursed and banished him from the island. this is not the only time Odysseus was betrayed by his men and suffered a great price.

By the actions of his subordinates, Odysseus receives a first-hand experience of Zeus’ rage as not only was his entire crew murdered, but he also drifts further away from the now seemingly impossible destination of Ithaca. Stretching back to his shipmates opening Aeolus’ bag of winds and getting transformed into lowly animals on Circe’s island, Odysseus should have learned not to trust his companions much earlier in his odyssey; it is no coincidence that once he is rid of all companions, he finally makes it back to Ithaca. Through this episode, Homer teaches us how some lessons we learn are not from our own mistakes, but

Travelling by boat on the sea through a cloudy, windy night is hard. When Odysseus and his men went back to sea, a supernatural storm hit them. Since the storm unexpectedly hit them, Odysseus and his men would be in shock and probably in terror on trying to save each other and the boat by trying to sail safely. However, the violence the of the wind ripped their sails into three and four pieces.

Odysseus is a strong warrior and he's courageous. When he was traveling on the island he was stopped by a cyclopes, he and his men lied about who they are and why they landed there, but the cyclopes didn't care at all, all he cared about was keeping them there on the island. When he grabbed two of the men, beat their brains out, dismembered them and ate them, Odysseus was gonna kill him right than and there but he remembered he couldn't move the rock that blocked the entrance. In the morning the cyclopes ate two more men, so when the cyclopes was gone the remaining men found a large club and made one end pointed. When the cyclopes came back Odysseus offered him some wine and got the cyclopes drunk. Odysseus then put the pointed end of the

In this scene, Odysseus could have taken ownership of all treasures and woman since he is the one in charge of the men that accompany him, but he decides to be equal and not make a single person feel worthless. Next, he and his men arrive to an Island called Cyclops, this scene demonstrate that Odysseus is very intelligent and very good at planning things out. A selection of the Odyssey states, “Odysseus says ‘I was thinking about drawing my sharp sword and driving it home into his chest where the lungs hide behind the liver… Another thought hit my hand: We would die to a man in that cave” (Homer 306). Odysseus is a brilliant man due to the fact that the man in the cave who is a very tall man by the name of Polyphemus, had put a big boulder rock covering the entrance to the cave and not even him with his men combined could move it out of the way. In addition to that, Odysseus thinks and develops a plan to get with drunk and blind him so that he can move the boulder out of the entrance and they can

Odysseus was an amazing man, whose exploits were made legend by Homer. While he was sailing, he endured many temptations. One temptation he could not overcome was when he was on his journey home, And Odysseus and his men took refuge on an island which held the livestock of the sun god; meanwhile, there was a large hurricane that stranded them on the island with little food (pg.170, paragraph 6). This gave a chance for Homer to realize the problems Odysseus was put through to get to a very simple goal of returning to his home. The disobedience of the crew was an opportunity for how the rest of his comrades died and he ended up at the island of Ogygian.

So when the Cicones gather an army from inland to ward off the Greek invaders, Odysseus loses many men and rather than acknowledge his error in judgment, he shifts the blame of the defeat to his crew. Convincing himself that he is not at fault for having been defeated, but rather his selfish crew who refused to leave, he justifies his actions, “Then I urged them to cut and run, set sail, but would they listen? Not those mutinous; there was too much wine to swill, too many sheep to slaughter”(9.50-52). Odysseus knows that if he stays on the island, the Cicones will rally an army and come to kill Odysseus and his men. Despite this, he stays and reassures himself that the major defeat was by Zeus’ hand, “Zeus presented us with disaster us, me and my comrades doomed to suffer”(9.61-62). Homer teaches us that no matter how many great accolades one holds, they are destined to fail if they cannot own up to their mistakes and actions.

In like manner, when Odysseus and his men were on the island of Thrinacia and were