The Down Fall of Odysseus

The Down Fall of Odysseus

All throughout literature many characteristics bring the down of a person. No story is truer about that than The Odyssey. The Odyssey was a Greek epic told by the famous Homer. Odysseus is very clever and aggressive, but also very prideful. His pride causes his journey home to take many more years than expected. Odysseus' pride is the cause of his downfall, which Homer wants his readers to understand how pride is a weakness and he does this through many literary elements in the epic. This great epic teaches that pride is the downfall of Odysseus.

There are many examples of his pride getting the better of him is after the fall of Troy. One example of pride is when they land on the island of the Cyclopes named Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon. Odysseus and his men are trapped, but he comes up with a clever way to get out. After the mange to get out of his cave, they made their way towards the ship. He can not resist telling the Cyclopes who he is so he shouts out that Odysseus had defeated him. Polyphemus then asked Poseidon to avenge him and make Odysseus' journey take a long time. Another example is when they land on the island of Helios, the sun god. The men were warned not to eat the cattle and for a couple of days they did not. One day Odysseus fells asleep and his men went and ate the cattle. Odysseus cursed the gods for letting him fall asleep. After they sailed out Zeus struck the boat with a thunder bolt and the ship was destroyed. All the men except Odysseus survived. Homer is trying to get us to understand something with those examples.

Homer uses the characteristic of pride to instruct us on how costly ones pride could be. The island of Polyphemus might have been the most damaging part of Odysseus's pride. He had come up with a plan to get his men and himself out of the cave. At the same time he was also disguising himself as a man named Nohbdy. As they got into the ship, after blinding the Cyclopes, Odysseus' pride got the best of him and he called back and gave the Cyclopes his name so he would know who had beaten him. That was a bad mistake. Polyphemus then had Poseidon to seek revenge and that made his journey take a much longer time. Homer wants to teach that Odysseus' pride at that moment was the main reason his journey took many years. Finally, Odysseus and his men landed on the island of the sun god. Odysseus was very weary and was overcome with sleep. His men then decided to eat the cattle. When Odysseus woke and found this he cursed the gods for letting him sleep. The gods were so upset that Zeus