The Sirens are half woman, half bird that lure sailors in by singing beautiful hymns. Odysseus orders his men to tie him up to the mast of the ship and don't untie him until they are past the Sirens. His were ordered to stuff their ears with beeswax so that the couldn’t hear anything. Odysseus and his men get past The Sirens without any casualties thanks to the smarts of Odysseus and Circe. Odysseus was once again an archetype hero in this situation.
D'Aulaire, Ingri, and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962. Print
In The Odyssey, Odysseus proves to be a weak leader by being overconfident in Book 9, forgetful in Book 10, dishonest in Book 12, and having a short temper in Books 21-23. Odysseus has been gone from home for twenty years. Ten years in the Trojan War, and ten years trying to get back home. Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, has waited for her husband to return home, and has gotten to the point where she believed that her husband was dead. However, he was not dead. The reason that Odysseus has not returned home is because Polyphemus put a curse on him, which made his journey more brutal while trying to return home. At first, they did not believe the curse, but days passed and the curse started to become true. Odysseus wasted a year on an
Odysseus’s traits help him achieve his goal of returning to his home. Odysseus and his men have a lot of willpower to continue traveling after some dangerous and life risking experiences with cannibals, lotus-eaters, cyclops and many more creatures that could of killed Odysseus and his whole crew. Odysseus's confidence and epic hero traits only increase as the story goes on, his confidence in his men increase as he starts noticing how strong and powerful his men can be, and also shows confidence in
In the novel The Odyssey, written by Homer, Odysseus is portrayed as a bad leader because of his selfish decisions and bad character. Odysseus makes a selfish decision when he leads his crew to stay in Polyphemus’s cave thinking he would offer gifts and Odysseus would “accept (his) help, or any gifts/” he had to “give” (9.726-727). This is a selfish act because he is putting his crew in danger for something that would only benefit himself. In the end, many of his people died and no one benefited. Once again, Odysseus displayed selfish acts when Circe told him “ he will be the only survivor of their long journey” (Homer 764). Odysseus is extremely selfish by betraying his crew. His crew believes that Odysseus is trying to help them return home, when he is actually only concerned about himself.
Odysseus went through a lot of adventures. And through good and bad time he almost always is getting out of the situation. Through all the adventures he showed an “Epic Hero Trait” and that is clever. He always makes a plan or decides something important. He got through the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, and now even his own home.
As there are two sides of a coin there are two sides to numerous things and Odysseus’s traits are one of those things. There are many atrocious non-heroic traits Odysseus
At various times throughout the story, mainly through the trials, Odysseus made many decisions and forced his crew to go through many potentially lethal situations without preparing his own crew, or situations that were just a waste of time. This then leads to not only all of his crew being killed but the creation of many bad relationships. The first example of Odysseus mistreating his crew is when he and his crew went through the trails, “No more. Come, / let me tell you about the voyage fraught with hardship / Zeus inflicted on me, homeward bound from Troy...” 9.42-44. During these trials, many burdens were put on Odysseus’ crew, which led to all of his crew eventually all being killed before returning to Ithaca. The 2nd instance where Odysseus made a wrong choice that affected his crew is when he didn’t even really trust his crew. So he stayed up for days straight and
A great leader views the world like he is looking through 3D glasses, always seeing the depth and vibrancy of the possibilities around him. A bad leader is like a cyclops wearing an eyepatch, never able to see his mighty hand in front of his own face. In The Odyssey, Homer illustrates the journey home to Ithaca taken by Odysseus and his men. Unfortunately, Odysseus makes poor choices throughout his travels and his actions often do more harm than good. Two character traits define Odysseus and shape his poor leadership style. The first trait is that he is a very arrogant person and this often puts him and his men in danger. Secondly, Odysseus can be deceitful and not fully communicate the facts of each situation. Odysseus was a weak leader and his lack of vision in not seeing the strength and possibilities in his men combined with his inability to effectively communicate to those around him ultimately led to his failure of not being able to safely deliver his men back to Ithaca.
In the book The Odyssey, the main character, Odysseus, is a man who is loved and respected by many. In the beginning of the book, we learn that Odysseus has left on a journey and, since it has been many years since his departure, many people assume that he has passed. On his journey, he portrays his many traits, not all of them being good ones either. Some of his good traits include his cunning, bravery, and hard work ethic. On the other hand, his negative traits are his excessive pride, immense curiosity, and rather large temper.
Yes, Penelope struggles greatly with a very important decision throughout the course of the story.
The definition of a hero is a person with supernatural abilities at performing specific tasks that normal people cannot typically achieve. In the epic poem called “The Odyssey” written by a poet named Homer, there is a character named Odysseus who contains these characteristics. During Odysseus’s journeys, while trying to find his way back home, he goes through many adventures showing off these characteristics of a hero.
The main character Odysseus in the Odyssey written by Homer is generally thought to be a great hero; however, he shows more traits of a quite flawed character on closer inspection. Around the beginning of Odysseus’ journey home after the war, Odysseus decides to take a detour to the home of a cyclops deciding to not listen to his men’s suggestions to leave while they still could; consequently, it does not end well: “Ah, how sound that was, Yet I refused. I wished to see the caveman, what he had to offer no pretty sight it turned out, for my friend” (9.130-132). This thought by Odysseus shows that he realized his decision to go to the mysterious island wasn’t the most rational one and that his men’s pleas to leave were the better option, but he decides to be stubborn and place his curiosity before his men’s safety resulting in a non-heroic
Odysseus suffered the consequence of being away from his son, Telemachus, and his wife, Penelope for 20 years. Odysseus was told by Athena and other gods, what to do during his journey. All of them told Odysseus that he couldn’t tell his men because they’d suffer a consequence. Odysseus listened to Athena and the gods because he only thought about himself and didn 't think about what his crew would say or do. When Odysseus and his crew passed by the mainland where the Cyclops lived, they were only going to stay for two days, but then out of curiosity, Odysseus wanted to see what kind of beast the Cyclops was which made them almost die. Odysseus didn 't even ask his crew whether they should do it or not because Odysseus made it seem like their opinion wasn’t important and didn 't matter. In the story, it says “Why not take these cheeses...Yet I refused, I wished to see the cave man, what he had to offer” (pg 818 L198-199). Odysseus deserved to return home from his journey after 20 years because it was mostly his fault. If Odysseus had told his crew about everything like why not to eat the cattle or to not open the bag of the unfavorable winds, his journey wouldn 't have taken 20 years. When Odysseus and his men traveled to the floating islands of Aeolus, god of the winds, who then gave Odysseus a bag containing all of the unfavorable winds, he didn 't even think to mention it to his men. Odysseus fell asleep when Ithaca was in sight, but his men, believing that
The Odyssey is a tale of a great hero trying to get home. An epic hero. An epic hero is a courageous and honorable person. Homer’s character Odysseus exemplifies this in many ways. No matter what is thrown at him he never stops trying to get home, getting past a Cyclopes, the Lady Circe, and sirens. He even gets through the Underworld and lives. Despite this, Odysseus does have faults about him, though not as many as there are qualities. He is a worldwide symbol, an archetype, of both nobility and bravery. Odysseus, the epic hero of the Odyssey, a great leader with many attributes as well as flaws, is no ordinary man.