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Free Will In Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

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In one of the episodes, Odysseus encountered Polyphemus: a Cyclops who held Odysseus and his men captive. Despite the wishes of his crew, Odysseus did not kill the Cyclops; Odysseus knew that if the Cyclops were to die, the men would not be able to move the boulder blocking the exit. Instead of killing Polyphemus, Odysseus blinded him by driving a sharpened staff into his eye. Blinded, Polyphemus sat by the exit blocking any passage; the men were faced with another issue: how would they slip away? Odysseus knew that in order to escape he needed to devise a carefully thought out plan, so he “drew on all [his] wits, and ran through tactics, reasoning as a man [would] for dear life, until a trick came–and it pleased [him]” (Homer 993). Odysseus

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