Flaws In The Odyssey

Throughout the course of the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men find themselves facing the most difficult of challenges. Odysseus will be classified as a bad leader or not based on how he acted during these challenges. Once inspecting Odysseus' decisions and thought process throughout his journeys, he is an overall bad leader. Some of his bad leadership moments are when Odysseus refuses to leave the cave of the cyclops, not communicating with his men about the contents of the bag from Aeolus, and not warning his men about the danger of eating Helios' cattle. All of these situations resulted in the death of many soldiers and could have been prevented by Odysseus.

Throughout the novel, Odysseus shows leadership as he sails over the oceans with his crew. For example, the crew must pass the massive whirlpool Charybdis and the six-headed monster Scylla. The monster will eat six men per ship. Odysseus knows that six men will die if they pass too close to Scylla, or Charybdis will devour the whole ship and crew. Odysseus, the leader of the crew, makes a decision that will benefit his crews mission. He motivates his men by assuring “this danger is no worse than what we faced” before (12:227). His leadership creates a courageous atmosphere that triumphs the fear in the hearts of his men. His men row on, despite the fear, following his orders, and only lost the six men they had to lose to pass this section of road on the pathway to home. Another example of strong leadership is the exploration of the cave of the cyclops Polyphemus. The cyclops is an unknown population,

Common flaws of humanity get everyone into trouble occasionally, especially characters in The Odyssey. (1) In the epic poem, The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus is the main character who spends many years trying to sail home to Ithaca from the war in Troy. (2) He made Poseidon angry with his arrogance and now Poseidon is continuously facing Odysseus with challenges that will keep him from getting back to Ithaca. While on this journey, Odysseus has his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus both loyally waiting for his return. Everyone else believes he was killed in the war, and suitor are all competing to try and marry Penelope, and rule Ithaca as Odysseus once did. (3) (Thesis – subject and opinion) The common flaws of excessive pride, the quest for power, and selfishness create challenges for Odysseus. (4)

Every individual has flaws, but it is up to the individual’s ability to control their imperfection in order for him/her to get out of predicaments. The flaw of one person will also not only affect that specific individual, but also the people around him/her. In the epic, The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus is not only a courageous, noble, and decisive hero, but also a leader who desires glory, and holds a great amount of pride and curiosity. This eventually leads him to give out his prudence and other unfortunate events that follow. Due to Odysseus’ flaws, him and his shipmates endure a long journey finding their way back to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

Odysseus does not tell his men many things and he keeps those secrets to himself. In one example of the Odyssey, Odysseus is given a gift from the god of the winds, Aiolos. The gift, a bag of winds, takes all the stormy winds and conceals them inside a cowskin bag. Odysseus’ crew, curious about what is in the bag, decides to open the bag and check what is inside. Thinking that there is gold and silver inside, they greedily open it emanating a windy gale. Odysseus describes the opening of the bag saying, ‘“A scandalous motion, but it was passed. They opened the bag, the winds leaped out; at once a gale caught them, and carried them off to sea tearing their hair as they left their native land behind.”’ (Homer 113). A very scandalous motion indeed for the island of Ithaca was visible to Odysseus and his me. Odysseus is punished for his poor leadership. He does not tell his crew that there are the stormy winds inside the bag, leaving his crew inquisitive. Odysseus also, “fell into a deep sleep…”(Homer 112) which gives the crew freedom because there is no supervision. This flaw gave Odysseus the wisdom of responsibility. Odysseus acts as the leader and tells his men what to do. Unfortunately, Odysseus’s men still disobey him on Thrinacia. The men take all of Helios’ cattle and they feast on them although Odysseus had already warned the men. Odysseus, having learned from poor leadership, said, “My friends, we have food and drink in the ship, so we must keep our hands off these cattle or we may suffer for it.” (Homer 144). Odysseus learns but his crew does not gain any wisdom. Odysseus tries to take leadership by warning his crew but they were all too greedy. Under the circumstances, Helios called upon Zeus and terror struck upon Odysseus men leaving only Odysseus alive. Odysseus gains the wisdom of responsibility after learning from his flaw of poor

The traits of leadership are not evident in Odysseus during much of his journey home to Ithaca. However, during his journey, Odysseus becomes better at leading his crewmates and making choices that would hurry their journey home instead of delay it. Soon after Odysseus’s crewmates convince him to leave Circe and resume their journey home, they face an obstacle in Scylla and Charybdis. During this terrifying episode, Odysseus displays his leadership in a prominent way by taking control of the situation and saying “So now let us all agree to do exactly what I say. Oarsmen, stay at your oars, striking hard with your blades through the deep swell, in the hope that Zeus allows us to escape disaster and come out of this alive. Helmsman, your orders

If someone scales the Statue of Liberty, but falls and dies, is he still a hero? If a leader’s last actions carry them to victory, are his flaws unimportant? The Odyssey by Homer narrates the ancient myth of a leader who faces many trials, and despite returning home from war in Troy alone, he is looked upon as a hero for having survived. As flaws of Odysseus and his crew are presented throughout the epic, people of the modern world may begin to understand that there exist several flaws that plague all men. What is consequential is not searching the forever-hidden answer to avoiding them, but understanding and applying them to new objectives. Odysseus of The Odyssey is faced with mental and physical trials on his voyage, and from him the difference

Occasionally, Odysseus gets himself stuck in tough situations, mainly because he is so stubborn. For example, while they all are waiting for the giant to come back to the cave, one of the crew members insisted to “… hurry, drive the lambs and kids from the pens to our swift ship, put out to sea at once!’ But [Odysseus] would not give way—“(Book IX, 255). This demonstrates that as the captain he will not take into consideration the other crew members ideas since he is too headstrong. Another example, is when Circe warns Odysseus to run and not fight, “But now [he] cleared [his] mind of [her] orders” (Book XII,

In The Odyssey, Odysseus demonstrates the qualities of a poor leader because his arrogance and pride interferes with his judgement to make wise wisdoms, thus putting his entire crew in danger. When Odysseus and his crew escape the one-eyed cyclops, Polyphemus, Odysseus is overcome with triumph as he and his deceived the cyclops by securing themselves to the stomachs of the monster’s flock of sheep. His escape plan proved successful, and he then proceeded to untie his men from the grazing sheep, and make haste to their ship. Odysseus taunts Polyphemus as he and his crew begin to sail away. “You shameless cannibal (IX.534),” said Odysseus to the cyclops, who became filled with rage. Odysseus’s crew sense the will of Polyphemus to wreck havoc, and thus, ask

Odysseus, the protagonist in The Odyssey by Homer, is quite like a juicy burger. Just like a burger, Odysseus’ physical qualities is like a bun, and all his other traits are covered under that bun. He utilizes ideal qualities such as brute strength, he is able to persevere despite desires to give up, he is helped by gods and mortals, and he regains his glory and power at the end. It is these traits that aid him to overcome the ravaging roadblocks in his way, thus also making him an Ancient Greek epic hero. These 4 traits show that Ancient Greeks valued men who were able to remain stalwart even through tough times.

Often times in certain literature, a character may be portrayed as one thing, but interpreted as something else. In “The Odyssey”, an epic by ancient Greek author Homer, we learn the adventures of a man named Odysseus. He goes to embark on a strenuous journey and face multiple challenges, and is described to be as an ideal hero, but the reality is quite the opposite. I believe Odysseus is shown to be incapable and incompetent, however, I also believe it adds depth to the story by showing both sides of the character, making it more interesting to read. One instance when Odysseus shows his deep flaws is when he is trying to anger the Cyclops, and shouts, “...if ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him Odysseus,

In the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus is a noble hero even if he does make some mistakes. Like all humans, Odysseus makes mistakes constantly. There is not one person in the whole entire world that does not make any errors. However, even though people make blunders, many do not want to learn or grow on them. They let their slips stop them and they do not overcome them. Conversely, Odysseus perseveres through his struggles and does not have his mistakes stop him from achieving his goals. He learns and overcomes his missteps, which makes him successful. During his times of struggle, Odysseus becomes a noble hero by being brave, using his wisdom, and caring for his followers.

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk...;”(Zuckerberg, Mark). If you take a risk you may succeed or you may fail and become wiser by learning from mistakes. Odysseus goes on a journey and finds out that independence is key to success. Homer and Oliver use characterization to convey that we undertake journeys to find what we’ve lost; In doing so we learn that the risks we take give us experience and teach us how to become independent and to protect others in a selfless way.

The Odyssey is one of the many ancient Greek literal master pieces written by Homer. Not much is known about Homer, but from the looks of it, he was probably an accomplished author. The Odyssey is centered on one man, Odysseus. Odysseus has the defining character traits of any hero/antagonist in any story: strength, courage, authority, confidence, but the most distinguishable of all his character traits was his Wit and quick thinking as we shall see later on. Although the Odyssey doesn’t really have an antagonist, I think Odysseus was his own antagonist.

Odysseus makes some substantial mistakes, thus leading to the failure to his men. Odysseus shows extremely inadequate leadership qualities throughout the story. When Odysseus is on the journey to Ithaka, he neglects to let his crew know how long they will be staying on each island. He also neglects to let them know of the journey that lies ahead. This is very poor leadership in the eyes of his crew members. The crew relies on their leader to be honest with them when it comes to situations such as these. They expect Odysseus to make decisions for the well being of the crew. When Odysseus receives advice, even if it is helpful he tends to ignore it. He thinks he is the most intelligent human being, even more so than the gods. A prime example of this is when Odysseus receives advice from Kirke about Scylla. Kirke tells Odysseus not to fight Scylla, yet he chooses to anyway. Another example of Odysseus’s ignorance toward people is when Eurylochus tells him not to go onto Kirke’s island because he knows the crew would be turned into swine. Odysseus again chooses to ignore the intelligent advice given by the gods, and finds out that hard way that Eurylochus was correct. After all that Odysseus has done to the crew, it is true to