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Penelope's Guile In The Odyssey

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When a person goes through a trial, he or she faces a challenge and their characters are revealed through their actions as they try to overcome it. In the movie, The Odyssey, the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, leaves his queen Penelope on the island and goes off to battle in the Trojan War. Victorious after fighting in ten years of war, Odysseus announces that he conquered Troy alone, without the help of the gods. His hubris angers Poseidon, the god of the sea, who decides to punish him by making his return to Ithaca nearly impossible. This punishment brings forth many trials for Odysseus and his wife, Penelope. Throughout the trials at sea and on unknown islands, Odysseus utilizes his guile, remains loyal at heart to his wife, and displays bravery and courage. However, he is also very arrogant; but later, he develops humility towards the end of his journey. Over at Ithaca, with trials at home, Penelope shows resilience, loyalty to her husband and shrewdness. Odysseus displays his guile and wit during his first trial, in which he is locked up with his crew in the cave of Polyphemus, the man-eating cyclops. In this life-or-death situation, Odysseus thoughtfully devised a plan to escape. He first intoxicated Polyphemus with wine to prevent him from eating more men. Polyphemus soon fell asleep and the crewmen …show more content…

This quality made his journey a lot more difficult than it should have been; in fact, he would not have been forced to embark on this odyssey if it weren’t for his arrogance. His hubris is revealed when he says that he triumphed over the Trojans without the help of the gods and when he gives out his name to Polyphemus right after he tricks him. Over the course of the odyssey, Odysseus develops humility when he finally accepts that he needed the gods’ help and apologizes to Poseidon. He was able to fix his flaw to become a better

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