Who Is the Monster Polyphemus or Odysseus?

In Homer’s The Odyssey Odysseus can perceived

in many different ways from heroic adventurer to a conniving liar. The same goes for Polyphemus. He is referred

to as a ruthless brute in the beginning

of book 9, the quotation I will be using is from the end of chapter 9 lines 490-514 and percives him in a different way. Polyphemus is much more than a heartless monster like he is often thought of as. In my opinion Odysseus is more of a monster than Polyphemus.

The passage I chose starts out the day after Odysseus leaves and Polyphemus is left in torment in his cave. “As soon as young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the rams went rumbling out of the cave towards the pasture, the ewes kept bleating round the pens, un milked, their udders about to burst”(9 488-491). Polyphemus’s animals represent his loss, they have milk to give bu Polyphemus can not help them because he can not see. His rams run away from him, this shows that Odysseus has taken more than just Polyphemus’s sight.

The next passage demonstrates polyphemus’s human like sympathy towards his beloved sheep. “Their master now, heaving in torment,