More handpicked essays just for you.
What is the nature of justice in oedipus
What is the nature of justice in oedipus
Ancient greece justice system
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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.
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.
In The Odyssey, Odysseus faced many adversities that caused him to have to stand up and take charge of the men who were sent on this epic adventure after the Trojan War. The Trojan War was a ten years war that was caused because of the abduction of Helen by Paris. Helen was a very beautiful woman whom every man desired to have. Thus, Paris kidnapped her and took her away to Troy. In order to win this forever lasting war Odysseus came up with the idea of building the Trojan Horse.
Both Odysseus and I have both shown level headedness. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is trapped in a cave with the gigantic man eating cyclops. The cyclops left them trapped in the cave for a day while he tended to his sheep giving him time to think. Odysseus finally comes up with an ingenious plan to put the cyclops into a deep sleep, but it would require him to stay level headed in one of the most dangerous things he ever had to do. Odysseus went up to the cyclops and offered him some extremely potent wine to put him into an very deep slumber so they could stab him in the eye.
For the suitors had ruined all of Ithaca and disrespected the beggars. When Odysseus completed a challenging task that none of his suitors could accomplish, he killed all of his suitors. " Odysseus' arrow caught under his chin and passed through his throat. All the suitors were so unfriendly that Odysseus killed them all. They ruined his house and tried to separate his wife from him.
At the end of part 2 of the Odyssey, when Odysseus is finally home and confronts the suitors in his home, he decides to slaughter them all for invading his home and courting his wife: “Not for the whole treasures of your fathers, all you enjoy, lands, flocks, or any gold put up by others will I hold my hand. There will be killing till the price is paid” (22.62-64). This quote from Odysseus shows that he was furious at the suitors, and he would allow no other atonement for their crimes except death. While the suitors all did wrong things, their actions did not deserve the death penalty. This shows that Odysseus was not thinking straight and being fair, and this is not something a hero would do.
In real life we make our own decisions, and some of those decisions lead to bad outcomes, even though we don’t blame ourselves for many of our mistakes, we are to blame. In Greek Mythology, humans make many important decisions in their life, many of them lead to horrible endings. In the journey of Odysseus, he made many choices throughout his journey that eventually led to the death of all his crew members. In other stories from mythology like the stories of Theseus and Icarus, they made decisions that led them and their loved ones to life threatening situations. Even Zeus once stated “My word, how mortals take the gods to task!
As the precise definition of justice cannot be definitively stated, the line separating just from unjust actions is incredibly obscure. Many factors may influence an individual’s perception of what constitutes justice, such as time period, culture, or personal morals. Thus, while an act may be considered righteous in one context, the same act may be ruled unjust in other contexts. For instance, when Odysseus finally returns home to Ithaca, as retribution for defiling his home and attempting to court his wife, Odysseus murders all of Penelope’s suitors. The extremely graphic depiction of his retribution had appeared almost superfluous, causing the morality of his actions to be brought into question.
However Odysseus, despite being a good man, does not display honor and dignity when he refuses to forgive the suitors, then slaughters them all, and has an affair with Calypso. Since Penelope can react to tough situations with grace and poise, she is more admirable than
In the Homecoming of Odysseus, Odysseus wants revenge on the suitors. One of the suitors recites the story of the courtship of Penelope, her resistance to the suitors, and Odysseus’ revenge. He wants the revenge because he when he came back home from his journey which took him 20 years, he finds that his house is full of suitors and they are taking everything that he earned. The other reason he wanted revenge was because Penelope that that he was dead and the suitors were going to replace him. Penelope said, “All my comeliness and my good looks are gone; the immortals took them from me when the army embarked for the war, and my husband with them.
Odysseus’ slaughter of the suitors was an act of justice and revenge. The act was revenge because slaughtering 108 men for courting your wife and eating your food is insane. If someone did that present-day, society would frown upon the person who committed such an act. It would be considered mass-homicide and the person would be jailed for life. On the other hand, the act is a form of justice because of the setting of the story.
What is the definition of a good person? The view of a good person changes as time goes on. However, the Odyssey is still the foundation of human morality. The Odyssey, created by Homer, is an ancient telling of a man named Odysseus and his journey home from the Trojan War. The morals found in the Odyssey show readers the benefit of being able to view situations from multiple points of view.
Penelope states, “So every day I wove the great loom,/but every night by torchlight I unwove it;/and so for three years I deceived the Achaeans (19.1332-1334). Penelope tells the suitors that she wouldn’t marry one of them until she finished her weave because she still believed Odysseus would return. She tries to stall as much as she could, and in the end it was just enough. Odysseus is able to kill all of the suitors with the help from his son, Telemachus. Both Telemachus and Penelope stay loyal to Odysseus after being separated from him for 20 years.
There are many lessons Odysseus and is men learn on their journey home in the Odyssey. Unfortunately, only Odysseus makes it home and the rest of men are dead because of their foolish actions. In the Thrinacia and The Cattle of the Sun episode of the Odyssey Odysseus’s men once again disobey him and cost them their lives. The men and Odysseus learn valuable lessons throughout their epic journey, but in the episode the most important lessons they learn are; temptation can lead to death, being obedient can save your life, and trust your instincts. If Odysseus’s men would have been more obedient to their leader Odysseus perhaps all of them would have made it back home alive.
Odysseus was able to have justice by killing the
