The Wrath of Poseidon in Odyssey Essay

A key event that delays Odysseus immensely on his journey home is Poseidon’s revenge. While sailing home, Odysseus and his men come to encounter Polyphemus, Poseidon’s Cyclops son. Odysseus and his men try to steal food from Polyphemus while he is away tending to his flock (Homer 362). When Polyphemus returns to his cave, he finds Odysseus and his men, and traps them in his cave. While trapped in the cave, Polyphemus eats many of Odysseus’

Odysseus describes this incident himself “I called back with another burst of anger, ‘Cyclops--if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so--say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca!” (Homer 227). This is a clear representation about how his overconfidence in himself has gotten the better of him. This causes Polyphemus to bellow out what Odysseus did to his father, Poseidon, “Hear me -- Poseidon, god of the sea-blue mane who rocks the earth! If I really am your son and you claim to be my father-- come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca never reaches home. Or if he’s fated to see his people once again and reach his well-built house and his own native country, let him come home late and come a broken man-- all shipmates lose, alone in a stranger’s ship-- and let him find a world of pain at home!”(Homer 228). This is the reason that Odysseus came home late, the reason why he was alone, and the reason why he had such a rough, terrible, journey back to his homeland

Thanks to some quick thinking from Odysseus, he manages to blind the cyclops so he and his remaining crew can escape. After getting away from the cyclops, he turns back to the cyclops and tells him who he is. He said that his name was Odysseus and that he lives in Ithaca. After hearing this, the cyclops prays to Poseidon, the father of all cyclops, to get revenge on Odysseus for blinding him. Though there are no immediate effects, this causes trouble for Odysseus later on. He gained

Odysseus’s journey home started when he was getting ready to set sail and leave Troy after the Trojan War. Odysseus shouts how he solved the war all by himself without any help from the gods. He is arrogant about their victory which angers Poseidon. Poseidon, along with other gods, curses his journey home.

But after the incident Odysseus surprisingly keeps his cool and begins to create a plan. In this moment Odysseus was portraying the trait of mental toughness. But, everything comes with a price, because Odysseus stabbed his son's eye out (the cyclops) Poseidon makes it impossible for Odysseus to successfully sail home to Ithaca. “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach that home; but if it is decided that he shall see his own people, and come home to his strong-founded house and to his own country, let him come late, in bad case, with the loss of all his companions, in someone else’s ship, and find troubles in his household.”

Odysseus being one of the most flawed characters in the book struggled vigorously with his imperfections. Odysseus presented many flawed actions throughout the book conveying him as an arrogant and conceited individual. He demonstrated on many occasions his arrogant thoughts and actions and he did not seem to have any sort of remorse to his actions making his doings almost inhumane. One example of Odysseus arrogance is observed when he and his crew are escaping the firm and fatal grasp of Cyclops, the son of Poseidon, God of the Sea. They come up with a plan to get Cyclops intoxicated with the wine they had brought for their voyage before getting captured, after succeeding with the first half of their plan they set out to complete the second part; gouging out his eyes.

In the second part of the Epic Poem The Odyssey Odysseus starts maturing very slowly. Odysseus starts thinking about his men while with Circe and he is concerned about them.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus has been trapped on Calypso's island many years after his many battles in the attempt to return back to his wife and son, Post-Trojan War. Zeus intervenes with Calypso and sends Hermes to convince Calypso to agree to let Odysseus build a boat and sail back to his wife and son. Poseidon hears of this and sends a storm to stop Odysseus from returning. The reason Poseidon is furious with Odysseus is that Odysseus stabbed Poseidon's Cyclops son, Polyphemus, in the eye, leaving him blind. The situation started when Odysseus was trapped with his men in Polyphemus’s cave when they attacked him and blinded him. After Polyphemus trapped them, they then tricked Polyphemus into freeing them and letting them escape. Polyphemus could not know who blinded him because 1) Odysseus had never told him his actual name, and 2) because Polyphemus was now blind and could not see who had done it. As Odysseus was escaping, his ego and hubris got the best of him and he revealed who he truly was

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, diction means choice of words especially with regard to clearness or effectiveness. With this being said, many writers use certain words to emphasize the tone of a story; including Homer, a legendary author to ancient Greeks. In his epic, the Odyssey, Homer uses diction to create a callous and candid tone when writing about the journey of a man, Odysseus, and his troubles returning home. While struggling through the rough sea, Odysseus, the protagonist, encounters a Cyclops. In this story, Polyphemus, the Cyclops, imprisons Odysseus and his crew.

Twenty years from home can be enough to break a man down. In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus struggles to get home over his two-decade hero’s journey. While he fought against monsters, women, suitors, and even his own men, his most tremendous battles are against himself, fighting his own officiousness and hubris. This conflict causes his expedition to not only be significantly longer but also notably more difficult. Odysseus’s flaw of curiosity provoked the god Poseidon, who is arguably his most heinous enemy. Once Odysseus’s and his men arrived at the Land of the Cyclopes, Odysseus inquisitiveness prompted him to explore the island, provoking Polyphemus, the Cyclopes. After violating the barbarian’s household, Odysseus quickly finds himself escaping Polyphemus’s wrath, however the Cyclopes was still able to curse Odysseus, calling upon his father, praying, “Should destiny intend that he shall see his roof again among his family in his fatherland, far be that day and dark the years between.

Secondly, Circe turns Odysseus’ crew into pigs and uses that as leverage in order to make Odysseus do anything she wants. For these reasons, Odysseus’ fate is in the hands of the immortals. Zeus and Poseidon have Odysseus’ fate in their hands because of their special powers. Coming home victorious from the Trojan War, Odysseus and his crew decide to stop at the Island of Sicily. They are greeted by Polyphemus who decides to disobey the laws of

In this book, Odysseus is immensely egocentric, for when he and his men are safe on the ship, Odysseus puts them in jeopardy by declaring his name to Polyphemus. He does not want to leave without credit for his accomplishment, so he makes a rash decision which angers the gods, thus bringing Poseidon’s wrath upon Odysseus, deservedly so. However, it also imperilles his crew, who merely desire to go home. In addition, Odysseus, later on in the epic, puts his men is danger over himself. According to The Odyssey, “Then Scylla made her strike, whisking six of my best men from the ship…

Vengeance is seen throughout the Odyssey. After Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, Poseidon's son, the cyclops asks Poseidon to make Odysseus come “[home] late and in misery, and in another man’s ship, may he lose all his companions and may he find tribulation at home”(118). Polyphemus wants to punish both Odysseus and his family in order to get his revenge. After suffering through Poseidon's vengeance, Odysseus returns home only to find that suitors have overtaken his home. This angers Odysseus, and he, “let [the arrow] fly straight at Antinoos [...] The arrow struck him in the throat and the point ran through the soft neck. He sank to the other side and the goblet dropt from his hands. In an instant a thick jet of blood spouted from his nostrils”(270).

Odysseus exemplifies how men cause themselves more trouble. On his travels home, they find an island inhabited by Cyclops. Odysseus and his sense of adventure determine that they should ask for a gift from the Cyclops. So, Odysseus sails to a cove near one of the Cyclops’ camp and investigates the camp with twelve of his best men. Eventually, the Cyclops returns, traps, and eats some of Odysseus’s men. In the end, Odysseus and the remnants of his search party managed to blind the Cyclops and escape. While they are sailing away, Odysseus taunts the Cyclops twice. The first time the Cyclops throws a rock that pushes the ship to shore, and the second time he prays to Poseidon and then throws a mountain. Poseidon answers the Cyclops’s prayers later by making Odysseus’s trip home as difficult as possible. Odysseus laments to each person that he meets how unfair

The conflicting will of the gods in the direction of Odysseus’ fate are clear in the opposing actions of Zeus and his remittance of Hermes to tell Calypso to let Odysseus go. However, just as the positive effects of this divine intervention are realized and Odysseus is able to build his boat, another god, Poisedon collects powerful winds which obliterate the boat Odysseus built and send him reeling off to another distant land where he is, for a time, free from any divine vengeance. Zeus recognizes the cause for Poisedon’s fury with Odysseus and notes that even though he himself wishes to aid Odysseus, “it’s the Earth-Shaker, Poseidon, unappeased, / forever fuming against him [Odysseus] for the Cyclops / whose giant eye he blinded” (Homer I.81-83).