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Challenges Faced In Odysseus In Homer's The Odyssey

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Before every student enters high school they are told “you won't make it out with your same friend group” and every student replies “yes we will, we’re different”. The challenge I have faced is just that, losing the friends I thought would be there forever. In The Odyssey similar events take place for Odysseus multiple times, though some could say that Odysseus does not lose his men until they are killed by Zeus. The challenge I faced is similar to Odysseus’ because he and I lose friends to inappropriate behavior and tough decisions.
At the beginning of freshman year my friends and I were like sisters, then a group of them decided to mess around and I wanted to stay away from it. Therefore, we lost something in common and started to drift apart. While on Odysseus’ journey they stopped on the island of Circe, there his men were acting like pigs. Circe did not appreciate what his men were doing and so she turned them into pigs. Just like I lost my friends to inappropriate …show more content…

She made a poor choice and I chose not to be around that kind of behavior. Consequently i have now lost every one of my middle school friends I swore would always be my best friends. Lastly, Odysseus men were trapped on an island and were starving, they made the decision to eat the one thing they weren't suppose to touch. The sun god, Helios was furious, he asked Zeus to punish the sailors. Zeus stuck them all with a bolt of lighting and killed all, except Odysseus. Odysseus, like me, finished the journey “but not with our friends”. (855) In The Odyssey, Odysseus faces many challenges and repeatedly loses the men in his crew. First, he loses them to Circe when they're turned into pigs, then six men were killed by the monster Scylla, and lastly Zeus killed the remaining men. Like Odysseus, through out my journey known as high school, I have faced many “heavy losses” (841) due to bad behavior and heartbreaking

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Throughout his journey, Odysseus and his men faces numerous temptations. When Odysseus is at Circe’s island to rescue his men, as he and his crew were about to depart Circe tell Odysseus “Remain with me, and share my meat and wine’ restore behind your ribs those gallant hearts/ that served you in the old days, when you sailed/ from stony Ithaka. ”(X.509-511). Odysseus falls into the hands of Circe as she tempts the crew with as much meat and wine they want. He and his crew givegave into Circe’s island, regaining the fat he lost, as the year goes by.

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Similarly, in The Odyssey, Odysseus must leave his

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In part one of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus uses his epic hero qualities to help him out on his quest to get back home to Ithaca. He’s shows superb intelligence when fighting the cyclopes in “Book 9.” That’s a quality of superhuman intelligence that Odysseus possessed all throughout his entire journey. Another epic hero quality that helped Odysseus was help from Greek gods and goddesses. In part two of Homer’s Odyssey, Athena helped out Odysseus when he got back to his home land.

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“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” -Erich Fromm ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer, follows the story of Odysseus, a great Greek hero. It tells of his venture to Troy, to lead his army in the Trojan War, and his separation from loved ones and his kingdom for twenty years. However, the novel mainly focuses on the story of his homecoming and all he, and many others, had to endure while he was returning from abroad.

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One of the destinations that Odysseus lands on is the witch Circe’s island. There, her beguiling voice attracts Odysseus’ men. When they arrive at her hall, Circe turns the men to pigs. Eurylochus urgently runs to Odysseus to alert him, to which “Odysseus leaves the ship and rushes to Circe’s hall” (Homer 758). Circe forces Odysseus and his men to stay for months until they finally beg to leave.

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Odysseus, the main character in The Odyssey, spends 20 years away from home. He dreams about going home but halfway through his journey, his crew gets killed by a lightning bolt and “Odysseus alone survives. He eventually drifts to Ogygia, the home of Calypso, who keeps him on her island for seven years” (Homer 12.212-213). His crew was loyal to him and had been through many things together.

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During Odysseus’ decade-long journey to his home, he encounters many forms of suffering, the most prevalent being transformative in nature. Transformative suffering, which is typically caused by mortals, themselves, alters a mortal being; albeit physically, mentally, or emotionally. In the first few years of his journey, Odysseus suffers the loss of much of his crew. He loses men while plundering a small island; he loses some to the lotus esters; and a few to Polyphemus. Throughout all these sufferings, Odysseus learns that he should listen to the advice of others; thus, transforming him mentally and emotionally through these sufferings.

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The main character Odysseus in the Odyssey written by Homer is generally thought to be a great hero; however, he shows more traits of a quite flawed character on closer inspection. Around the beginning of Odysseus’ journey home after the war, Odysseus decides to take a detour to the home of a cyclops deciding to not listen to his men’s suggestions to leave while they still could; consequently, it does not end well: “Ah, how sound that was, Yet I refused. I wished to see the caveman, what he had to offer no pretty sight it turned out, for my friend” (9.130-132). This thought by Odysseus shows that he realized his decision to go to the mysterious island wasn’t the most rational one and that his men’s pleas to leave were the better option, but he decides to be stubborn and place his curiosity before his men’s safety resulting in a non-heroic

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Each man becomes “blind in his reckless ways” (Od.12.325). This is the final straw, the action that will undo them all. Just like Circe warned, Odysseus returned home “all shipmates lost, and come a broken man” (Od.12.153). Failure to keep their oath and control the temptations of their flesh led to the crews violent and untimely death. Since Odysseus is the only one to return, not only are his men all robbed of their own homecoming and lives, but the people of Ithaca were robbed of their fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and

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In Homer’s The Odyssey Odysseus goes on a journey to get back home from war. Along the way he goes through monsters, challenges, and obstacles that he has to face to make it back to reach his goal in the end. He has difficulties that change him as a person and how he reacts to events and points. This relates to me because even though both of our lives are different we have similarities.

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After Odysseus returns from his encounter with Circe, a beautiful witch-goddess who drugs and bewitches Odysseus’s most able crewmen, his men are more than relieved to see him and they flock around him as if he is their master and their shepherd. Odysseus is a man who is respected by his crew and treated as a mortal god by the heavens above. As shown in this scene, his men are stuck in the middle of a cross road without his guidance, pivoting towards all directions but incapable of moving forward with a plan. They are “wailing and crying besides [the] sailing ship”(10.433) without any sense of hope and direction in life. They are missing a leader who will lead them in war and guide them back home; they are missing Odysseus.

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