Examples Of Evil Thoughts In The Odyssey

The Odyssey, by Homer, is a story about a hero from the Trojan war named Odysseus, who throughout his story, has to overcome many different challenges that test his strength and reveal many things about himself. In this excerpt, Odysseus and his men travel to a land where they discover the Kyklopes. In the excerpt from the heroic poem The Odyssey, Homer alludes that Odysseus and his men believe that they are better than the Kyklopes by using various connotations. Throughout the story, Odysseus and his men call the Kyklopes “ignorant” and claims that their society is more developed than the Kyklopes.

“…When men compete for the hand of a lady, A woman of some worth, a rich man’s daughter. They bring cattle, and fat sheep, To feast the bride’s friends, and they give her Glorious gifts. They do not devour Another’s livelihood without recompense.” She spoke, and Odysseus, the godlike survivor, Smiled inwardly to see how she extracted gifts

Odysseus is known for being a war hero during the Trojan war. During his treacherous ten-year journey back to Ithaka to regain his crown as King of Ithaka. Although Odysseus is arrogant, he is very witty trying to get his men safely to Ithaca. Odysseus is witty as he outsmarts those trying to keep him from reaching his homeland.

Throughout time people have been known to show both cruelty and kindness towards others. In the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer Odysseus goes on a twenty year journey and encounters many difficulties along the way. He encounters situations where his men get killed and not only by people but extraordinary forces. In some situations, his crew disobeys his orders which leads to negative consequences. However, in other situations humans as well as Gods support them. Throughout the epic Odysseus encounters characters such as The Lotus Eaters, Cyclops, and Circe who show that mortals and gods are a mixture of both cruelty and kindness.

Although many people are faced with life threatening problems, Odysseus will always try his best to get him out of a situation, by creating imagining, and innovating. The cyclops captures Odysseus and his men and was going to eat them. But luckily, Odysseus had a plan to escape from the cyclops by making the cyclops drunk. So later on Odysseus obtains some wine from his ship and says to the cyclops “Cyclops, try some wine. Here’s liquor to wash down your scrape of men”(Homer 9. 904). He wants to trick the cyclops into getting intoxicated so they could escape and return to his land. Odysseus was using something from the habits of mind and that is creating, imagining and innovating. Odysseus is smart to trick the cyclops and escape. He knew that if the cyclops was intoxicated the cyclops would not pay attention to Odysseus and his men, and they could escape. Using

“Hope is facing the ultimate Darkness while having your mind set on seeing the Light again.” -Unknown. You have to go through some hard times to be able to have the good and amazing times. Just like many people say you need a little rain to see a beautiful rainbow.The epic poem, The Odyssey by Homer, is about a young man and his crew going through a long unexpected journey with many surprises along the way.They encounter many different obstacles throughout their passage home. Through the crew’s betrayal the author discusses responsibilities and reveals greed is the leading contributor to setbacks.

When one first considers the facets of the travels of long-suffering Odysseus, the many trials and temptations which he must face would be sure to come into the conversation. However, food, especially its relationship to temptation, would likely not be the initial aspect to jump out. Our modern eyes have the tendency to skip over the long passages of ritualistic feasting and food offerings and do not slow down to consider the implications presented here.

Both Odysseus and I have shown self restraint. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is first showing self restraint when he realizes that if he kills the cyclops he and his men would be trapped. So instead of killing the cyclops he decides to get him drunk and while the cyclops is sleeping Odysseus stabs the cyclops eye and blinds him. The second time Odysseus show’s self restraint is when Odysseus and his friends are going past the sirens. He has his men tie him down so when they pass the sirens Odysseus won’t leave the ship and forget all about his friends.

Resulting in angering Polyphemus’ father, Poseidon, who has curse Odysseus to never return home with years of bad luck. Indicating that Odysseus cockiness has lead Odysseus to try too hard to be heroic in unnecessary situation. Though, a point could be made that the Polyphemus does do bad things to people on the island, but nobody really ask for help from Odysseus. He kind of just take self liberty to bring justice to the people by defeating the Polyphemus. Not to mention, that the Polyphemus offer him a chance to forget all about the incident and be friend, but instead of accepting that offer, Odysseus provoke him even more by saying, “If I could take your life I would and take your time away, and hurl you down to hell!” (line 480, pg. 997). To put in simpler term, Odysseus indicate that he will never befriend the Cyclops for he is horrible creature that should be annihilated. Showing the reader how rashly Odysseus made his decision, as he could have make friend with Polyphemus, and continue on to his voyage home instead of putting himself in a bad position by insulting the Cyclop. Lastly, another quality that is bad about Odysseus is that he is selfish. For once, when he has come across an island on his way from Troy, he had decided to raid the village and take women as hostages for sexual pleasure. Showing how he is only doing this for his own need and not caring about the people that live in that village. He

Odysseus expects others to respect major Greek traditions, yet throughout the episode with Polyphemus, he violates the tradition whenever he feels necessary. Greeks believe that food crimes are some of the worst possible crimes people can commit. Since the Greeks equated meat to status, stealing meat meant robbing someone of their status. Odysseus does not respect this custom when he tries to steal the cyclops’ livestock, which is how he ended up trapped in the cave in the first place. Yet when Polyphemus eats some of the men, an act that cyclopses do not identify as wrong, Odysseus is appalled. “We flung our arms to Zeus, we wept and cried aloud, / looking on at his grisly work—paralyzed, appalled” (9.331-332). Odysseus expects Zeus to uphold this double standard by punishing the cyclops, who was merely acting on instinct, while condoning an intentional food crime.

During his visit to the underworld, Odysseus was informed of one of his most formidable enemies: desire. Teiresias plainly told him that “if [he could] contain [his] own desire, and contain [his] companions… [they] might all make [their] way back to Ithaca” (Homer 171). When they finally saw the island, Odysseus did feel the desire to stop at the island, but tried to heed the warnings he received. His men however did not feel the same way he did. His me pestered him until he felt they had “[forced him] to it” but in reality he was just making an excuse to give in to his desires” (Homer 193). After indulging in his (and his crew’s) desires, he thought they would soon proceed off the island, however this was not the case. While exploring the island, his food deprived crew came upon the cattle of Helios, and being starving, began to cook and eat them, even sacrificing a part to the gods. Odysseus was walking back to their camp on his own when “the pleasant savor of cooking meat came drifting around [him], and [he] cried out [his] grief aloud to the gods immortal (Homer 194). Once he smelled the meat he knew that the horrific actions that were predicted would come true. All these things happened because Odysseus’ crew did not follow the instruction of their leader and instead followed their desires, but an even worse fate comes true when they disobey the gods themselves.

The tone of The Odyssey in Book III by Homer is revengeful and angry. We can see that revengeful and angry are the tone words for Book III in the diction. There are many words that makes the readers know the tone of the Book, such as destroying, violence,and corpse evoke a feeling of vengeance and madness. The images help create the mood for the reader.

In Book 22 of The Odyssey, Odysseus attempts to reclaim his household from the suitors who have been courting his wife and creating chaos for three years. Earlier in the story, Odysseus exhibits traits of recklessness when he reveals his identity during his encounter with the Cyclops in Book 9, which delays his homecoming by several years. After he returns to Ithaca, Odysseus makes a great effort to avoid being reckless to help him gain a much needed advantage over the suitors, who greatly outnumber him. Odysseus does not return to recklessness in his confrontation with the suitors because he is simply unleashing his anger on the suitors for taking advantage of his household. Odysseus is a strong warrior, but he does not only depend on his strength to get rid of the unfaithful inhabitants invading his household.

According to both Greek and Homeric values humans should have reason, but very often they express passion, which leads to contradictory emotions and obstacles in life. Odysseus, a man with a complex life, struggles with many internal, personal contradictions that have a collective impact on his decisions throughout his existence. The most important contradictions Odysseus faces are loyalty and betrayal; humility and hubris; and wisdom and folly,

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