The Character Of Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

A child relies on his parents and is foolish from time to time. A child could also represent the ever so often hero, Odysseus from the Odyssey by Homer. The Odyssey is an epic poem about the mortal Odysseus and his journey to get home and at Ithaca, with the help of the greek goddess Athena. Throughout the poem, Odysseus is generally seen as a hero when Athena helps him, but once in awhile he can act like a hero without any help, but is otherwise selfish without it.

From the beginning to the end of the poem Odysseus is helped by the goddess Athena. An instance if her helping him is when Odysseus is telling the king a story from his journey, “I tied on my cuirass and took up/ two heavy spears, than made my way along/ to the foredeck- ...to see [the] monster harboring to torment my friends,” (Homer 12.795-799). The reason Odysseus knew to expect Scylla, the monster, is because Athena told Odysseus about her. Another example of Athena helping is when she told Odysseus about the suitors in his home at Ithaca. She told him to make the suitors pay for what they have done while Odysseus was gone. She gave him a cloak so that he would be

While Odysseus has exhibited traits of a hero, he is also selfish and over confident. You can see this when he is sailing away from the cyclops, Polyphemus. Odysseus yells out to Polyphemus, after keeping his identity a secret, “Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:/ Laertes’ son, whose home 's on Ithaca!,” (Homer 9.504-505). By saying this to Polyphemus he not only endangers him and his crew, but his city too because of his over confident and selfishness. A different example of this occurs earlier in the poem when he commands his men to fight “backed on the ships, with lances keep play/…/ although so far outnumbered/…// six benches were left empty on every ship,” (Homer 9.166-177). His willingness to fight the Achaeans, while clearly outnumbered, shows he is willing to lose his men 's lives for a victory. Which is selfish to his