Examples Of Odysseus Being Morally Wrong

In the first few books Odysseus is seen as a strong, brave, courageous leader, as well as an awesome fighter. I believe the impression of him continues to show throughout Books 6-10. In fact, in Book 9 when he went to explore the land where the Cyclopes lived it took lots of courage to injure the Cyclopes the way he did then and then a great deal of intelligence to strap his men to the underside of the heard, so they could escape. Although he lost have the men he took with him on his exploration half of them did survive because he thought of away to escape. Yes, Odysseus made some bad decisions and got some of his crew killed, but he also made someone good decisions and some of them survived. We all have to make choices and sometimes they

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

The three topics that will be discussed about Odysseus’ revenge against the suitors are his, motivations, strategies, success, and my opinion on whether justice was carried out or not. First, it is critical to understand the reasons for odysseus to attacked the suitors. There are total of three motives; all of them involved with ownership. While Odysseus was gone the suitor had laid eyes on Penelope.( Odysseus’s wife) This obviously upsets Odysseus when he returns home, and his wife doesn’t even belong to him any more. So, if he wants his wife back he will have to destroy the one that is trying to take her away from him. The second motivation for Odysseus to revenge against the suitor is to save his son Telemachus. Because the suitors hungered for the death of Telemachus, for he was prohibiting them from marrying his mom. The last motivation is to get what rightfully belonged to him. After 10 years of absence from home his possessions was slowly taken away. Therefore, he had to fight for his possessions.

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 the epic poem The Odyssey, the character is forced out of his home by the wooers, suitors who wish to court his wife Penelope. This is a story of the family's each individual struggles. The story mostly focuses on Odysseus's return home to the prince and Penelope. But, when Odysseus returns he kills everyone including the wooers and anyone involved. A harsh but rash decision, was it the right one.

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

Odysseus’s actions may seem selfless and/or heroic however they are actually being mistaken for acts of selfishness. “They tied me up, then, plumb amidships, back to the mast, lashed to the mast and took themselves again to rowing” (Homer 1134). Homer is describing the crew lashing Odysseus to the mast so that he may hear the sirens sing. Odysseus thinks he is being heroic and manly, but he is actually placing his life and that of the crews in danger all because he wants to hear the song of the sirens. Odysseus knows how loyal his crew is to him so, if one of them was to untie him they could have all ended up dead. Odysseus might think he was performing a heroic action but in actuality he was performing an act of selfishness. When Circe captured Odysseus’s men he was advised not to save them by his best man, Eurylochus, however “Against this advice, Odysseus rushes to save his men from the enchantress” (Homer 1125). Odysseus appears to be heroic but looking closer this rash decision was selfish. He rushed to save his men for honor. He cares more about honor than the safety of his crew. The rest of his crew that wasn’t under Circes spell would have been lost if Odysseus died because they rely so heavily on him. When a leader mistakes his selfish decisions as heroic it can place him and the people around him in danger. Odysseus’s inability to think through his rash decisions and recognize the right choice over the honorable and selfish one makes him unfit to be a

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.

First of all, Odysseus was very selfish during their journey back to Ithaca. For example,“We lit a fire, burnt an offering, and we took some cheese to eat; then sat in silence around the embers, waiting”(Homer 219-222). If Odysseus took the cheese and left, his men would not have had to dealt with Polyphemus. He put himself before his men because he wanted a gift from the cave owner. Odysseus was also selfish when he sailed near the lands of Sirens.“Steer wide; keep well to seaward; plug your oarsmen’s ears with beeswax kneaded soft”(Homer 669-671). Although Circe told Odysseus to steer clear of the area, Odysseus wanted to be known as the man who survived a Siren’s song. He put his own men in danger just because he wanted to become famous. Odysseus was also very arrogant to think that he could get past the Sirens.

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

Odysseus was not justified in his actions. Even though the wooers might have deserved being killed, because of how disrespectful they were to Penelope and Telemachus. They were even disrespectful to Odysseus as well, trying to steal his country from him wasn't the smartest idea. All those hateful things the wooers said still does not make killing them okay. Violence is never the answer for anything.

In the time of the so-called Heroic Age (roughly the Mycenaean Age, the time of the Trojan War, 1200-1100 BCE or thereabouts) standards were much, much different, and some of them, at least, for very good reasons. Probably by those standards (or the standards of Homer’s time, some 400 years later) Odysseus was considerably closer to a hero than he would be in our eyes today. Perhaps, what might now be seen as grotesquely excessive blood letting, would then have been seen as an understandable or even necessary act of retribution

Odysseus has no reason to save his men’s lives but for his own convenience. Finally, Odysseus is home and after a long journey in which he shows no heroic actions and yet proves to be nothing but a villain, he once again proves throughout his actions that he is a villain. Odysseus is finally home, on Ithaca, and is then helped by Athena and disguises himself as an old beggar. He proves then to be a villain by seeking his revenge for the suitors and maidservants that once betray him (696, summary). Another way in which Odysseus shows he is a villain is when he finally reunites with his wife Penelope and reacts with rage when she tests him. This reveals Odysseus is a villain because he reacts as if he was innocent and some way being betrayed by his own wife. Of course, though, he never tells his loyal wife Penelope about his love affairs with Calypso and Circe. In conclusion, Odysseus throughout his actions proves to be not only veil but a villain. He leads his men into trouble, kills the suitors and maidservants without mercy, and betrays loyal wife. This allows readers to truly see Odysseus other side. He was a villain and there is no doubt about it. However, think about his so called heroic actions and the way he made everything work out for his own benefits. He knew he was a villain and somehow still got away with

Covering the Mental health and the other problems with gun control, I have forgotten to talk about a couple of key concepts. Gun control is a subject that people normally choose sides in, claiming to be are either pro or anti gun control. Yet, researching more on this topic, I have found that most of our politicians are completely biased and do not even look at facts completely, only taking out what they believe is necessary. They are even saying false information to everyone. Our current president, Donald J Trump, has claimed that he is anti gun control, but doing more research on him I discovered that he is saying statements that a pro gun gun control person would say. He is trying to gain votes by being anti gun

Malcolm X said, “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” This statement was made about media over forty years ago, so is it possible for a young adult in today's society to escape the control of media? Media is everywhere, therefore young adults are subject to see and utilize it on a daily basis! Young adult's decision on what to wear, what to eat, what to love, and what to fear is based on media influence. These influences that the media has on young adults are not positive and there are various reasons why. Media is massive in itself, therefore it comes in many forms and these forms have created an unsound reality for young adults. Media is used to communicate messaging and those that are negative directly affect young adults.