How Did Odysseus Change

In the novel “The Odyssey” retold by Barbara Leonie Picard (initially by Homer), Odysseus was a significant character who changed. Throughout the story, he changed by learning how think before acting, being honest and communicating with his team, and becoming persistent toward his main goal which is going back home. He also displayed many of Art Costa’s "habits of mind” such as teamwork, persistence, and stop and think. We can learn from Odysseus’ journey as we read about him.

Odysseus was a king, husband and father. He was the king a small Greek island called Ithaca, a father of a boy named Telemachus and the husband of Penelope. During the prequel of the story (“The Iliad”), Odysseus was a Greek warrior and a hero. He was known to be

An example of this was during his first stop to the island of Cicones, he charged out with all of his men, killed everyone in the island, stole all the cattle, drank wine and did a premature celebration of victory. The aftermath of this is that they lost seventy two men, due to the Cicones fighting back and got lost at sea from a strong north wind. “Feasting with looted food and drink all night, they gave no thought to the people whose city that day despoiled”(pg.4). We learn that Odysseus was used to killing people mindlessly and taking stuff from the trojan war and lost his ability to stop and think. The ability to stop and think is important in Art Costa’s “Habits of mind” because if one stops and thinks before they act, bad things won’t happen. We see the first change in Odysseus’ character when he sailed to the land of the Lotus-eaters. During this trip, Odysseus only sent three men to carefully inspect the island. These three men ate the lotus fruits provided. The side-effects of the fruit caused them to forget their homes in Ithaca, dream mindlessly all day, and refuse to go back to the ship. These men were unfortunately left behind