Flaw, a fault or weakness in a person’s character. The Odyssey gives many examples of flaws. No one in The Odyssey was flawless; including the gods and demigods. Some flaws are more common than others. The Odyssey teaches a great deal about common flaws of humanity. The Odyssey gives good examples of the human flaw of greed. Odysseus and his crew… “sacked the city , killed the men, but for the wives and plunder that rich haul we dragged away from the palace” (9.212). The crew attacked an innocent city because they could, also to say they did. They stole from the town and took their women. Another example of greed is when the suitors came… “they infest our palace day and night, they butcher our cattle, our sheep, our fat goats, feasting themselves sick” (2.95). The suitors were constantly eating and drinking the palace supplies. They overstayed …show more content…
After thinking about it Odysseus said “at last, I mounted Circe's gorgeous bed” (10.241). Odysseus knew he was married to Penelope but still cheated on her. After he got his men back there was no need to stay, but he made that choice. Calypso tries to get Odysseus to stay saying… “Hardly right, is it, for a mortal woman to rival immortal goddess? How, in build? In beauty?” (5.158). Moving forward, Calypso tries to get Odysseus to stay for lust by making him feel bad. She let lust get in the way of what was right by trying to make him stay. The maids… “sluts- the suitors whores.” (22.453). were unloyal to Odysseus for lust, they were loyal to the suitors. The flaw of lust was shown multiple times in The Odyssey.
Flaws to humanity happen all throughout The Odyssey. All people make flaws , even a hero like Odysseus made many flaws. Not one person was perfect in The Odyssey. Outside of the book, unfortunately people have many of these flaws that are inevitable. Flaws are common, but you can learn a great amount about them in The
The Odyssey Many people deem Odysseus to be an archetype hero. But was he really? Sure, he won many wars, but did he show the characteristics that matter? No!
For instance, The Huntsman made a deal with the Evil Queen that she'll bring back his dead wife back if he brings back the prisoner that escaped into the dark forest back to her. This shows greed because he just wants his wife's live with him because to him it doesn't matter who he has to kill or capture to get his wife back. Secondly, In Washington Irving's “ The Devil and Tom Walker” Tom Walker's wife displays her greed by hiding useless things that are mostly used by the husband and the wife lie eggs but she hides it. For instance, “At length she determined to drive the bargain on her own account… to keep all the gain to herself .”
Odysseus is a man of pride and commitment, even though that commitment he has sometimes gets him in trouble. When Ceres the Greek Goddess who wants Odysseus to sleep with her, he then refused which led to her changing his men into animals. Odysseus has to break his commitment to Penelope and sleep with her. Odysseus meets many gods which help him find his way home.
Another similar terrible sin is not being loyal to your spouse. Thankfully, Odysseus was a faithful husband to his wife, Penelope. Homer agrees when he writes “But in my heart, I never gave consent” (Homer, 917). Even though goddess and immortals desired him, he always only loved and longed for Penelope because of his admirable loyalty. Moreover, the only reason Odysseus remained with Calypso for so long was because she forced him to.
Penelope, his wife, is greatly affected; as many greedy suitors disrespect her and move into their home to try and win her hand in marriage. Throughout ‘The Odyssey’, the greed and folly of men play a huge part in increasing the difficulty and severity of Odysseus’s situations and ultimately change his fate and the directions of his journey. The greed and folly of men are largely represented by Penelope’s suitors. In the very first book of The Odyssey, the disgusting actions of the suitors were introduced to the readers.
They both uphold the general values society places on their sexes, but through their hardships they are able to gain a fluidity in these roles not often given in their society. Odysseus was able to express emotion without undercutting his masculinity, and was able to appreciate his wife for more than her domestic accomplishments. While Penelope became a paradigm of fidelity, she also embodied inner-strength as she dealt with the turmoil of her missing husband, rowdy suitors, and the destruction of her kingdom; which allowed Odysseus to come to appreciate her ingenuity and his marriage in
In Homer’s, The Odyssey, the traits of an ideal Greek man is described many times over. Often times, Homer indirectly illustrates these characteristics through the qualities of men who do not appear to be ideal. Zeus relates the traits of an unideal man: “Greed and folly . . . stole his wife and killed the soldier on his homecoming day”(2). Zeus’s description of Agisthos, the man who had an affair with a king’s wife and killed him after he returned from the Trojan war, chastises this behavior, he indirectly teaches men the characteristics of a quintessential man.
The suitors,mostly their leader, were acting mean toward Odysseus because he was disguised as a beggar. They were mean to him because they failed the test to string and shoot the bow and he asked if he could do the test. He strung and shot the bow perfectly, so his wife thought of him as a suitor. When Penelope left, Odysseus still had the bow, so that was his plan to kill them.
As Odysseus arrives to the island-home of Calypso, the beautiful nymph, he is quickly held prisoner. Although it may seem that Odysseus felt that he was truly a prisoner, he, at one point in his stay, enjoyed Calypso’s presence and was willingly seduced by her. It is clear that over the seven-year stay, Calypso had fallen in love with Odysseus and he had let his vulnerability to women become his harshest weakness. Her female dominance was even shown at times of manipulation through her ability to hold a man prisoner and prevent him from carrying on with his travels home. Although, when it came upon Athena that Odysseus was eager to arrive home to Ithaca, Zeus sent Hermes to have Calypso free Odysseus.
In Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, some might argue that Odysseus’s dishonesty and deceit cause loss of trust and negative consequences. However, Odysseus’s dishonesty and deceit do not always have bad intentions, it can be seen when Odysseus and his men escaped out of Polyphemus’s cave to get out of trouble and when Odysseus received help from his men to get closer to their objective. While lying is looked down upon, people
Another sort of greed is how abbey was emotionally greedy she didn’t want the money she wanted john Procter. Due to her wanting john Procter she tried to kill his wife Elizabeth by saying she a witch. This also shoes that in the play how greed is a major theme because not only was their money greed there was emotional greed. Overall the play was full of greed because everyone was trying to take something out of the Salem witch trials which then led to more people being killed. This shows how the play was full of greed which led to a whole lot of people being
These women influenced the conditions of the journey by guiding Odysseus in different directions, and aiding him crucially. Their authority showed the idea behind an old proverb, which states, “Behind every great man there’s a great woman”. Throughout The Odyssey, the women exemplified their power during the course of Odysseus’ journey. Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, bravely held down the front in Ithaca while her husband struggled to find his way back home. In Book 18, Penelope spoke to the ever-so-desperate suitors about what Odysseus “told” her before he left.
The respectable male characters such as Odysseus treat women well, but mostly for their appearance and marriage potential. Near the beginning, after washing up on the island of the Pheaecians, he meets a girl and says, “Mistress: please: are you divine, or mortal? If one of those who dwell in the wide heaven, you are the most near to Artemis, I should say,” (8). To
When Odysseus finally returns home, he has Athena disguise him so he can look at how his home has been going without him. Everyone besides his wife, son, and two other of his men have been disloyal to him and there is a group of suitors there who have overstayed their visit trying to get Penelope to be their wife. Odysseus locks the suitors all in one room where the
However, these contrasts between their personal thinking built most of valuable points in Odysseus' epic journey, and making a more intense story. To some extent, these women are not foolish at all because at least they are successful at leading people to believe that waiting is meaningful. The whole story happened during the dark centuries of women in Greece, when their value was limited behind men. However The “Odyssey” gives an opportunity to horror their role, also rejecting all erroneous preconceptions about the woman. Penelope -- a typical woman who represents for an image of a devoted wife, a mother of family and she is also an image of how women was treated at Greece.