Odysseus Crew Analysis

The Undeserving Loyalty From Odysseus’ Crew

There are many times when loyalty is misplaced or present when it should be absent. In the book, The Odyssey, by Homer, the protagonist, Odysseus, is making his way home after fighting in the Trojan war with his faithful comrades. Along the way, he meets danger, death, and divine beings. As he struggles to make his way home with his crew, he finds out that his wife is being courted by suitors and his son has lost most control over his home. In order to then make it home, Odysseus relies on the loyalty of his crew to him, but it is deserved? Although some may say that Odysseus deserves the loyalty of his crew, he does not because he puts them in the way of danger, is very inconsiderate, and usually follows other plans that people have gave him.

While on his journey home,

This is shown first through the taunting of the Cyclops. As stated above, Odysseus taunts the Cyclops who shows that he is more than capable of wrecking their ship and the people on it. Besides that, the crew begs for Odysseus to be sensible and stop with the taunting, but they were unable to “bring [his] fighting spirit round.” The only reason why he does stop is because the Cyclops eventually makes a big enough wave with the top of a mountain thrown in the water to push their vessel to another island (9. 530-608). Due to the pleading of his crew, this shows that Odysseus is inconsiderate because they could have easily died and left their families behind. This also shows that he is inconsiderate because if someone is a good leader, they usually listen to other inputs and act according to that, but Odysseus was headstrong and wanted to continue the taunting. The next time that Odysseus shows that he is inconsiderate is their stay at Circe’s land. The crew members have families at home which they want to see once again, but Odysseus is reluctant to