The Definition Of Loyalty In Homer's Odyssey

The definition of loyalty is faithful adherence to someone or something. Loyalty has been valued in society since the beginning of time, however one thing has changed. The lengths that people go to show their loyalty varies throughout time. In the book, The Odyssey by Homer, civilians were loyal to their family and friends. The extent that they would go to show their loyalty to each other is different than what it is now. Homer writes about a story about the extent people went to stay loyal to each other. Penelope is loyal to her husband, Odysseus, and waited seven years for his return. Penelope was faced with pressure to marry, countless suitors to choose from, and the common belief that her husband was dead. Despite this, Penelope refused to remarry or accept that Odysseus was dead. “So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web— by night, by the light of torches set beside her, she would unravel all she’d done.” (_________) The extent Penelope goes to stay loyalty to her husband is lying and manipulation. She would deceive the suitors by getting their hopes up and ask for time to finish weaving a blanket for her lost husband, but would undo her progress at night and start over the next day.

People would not abandon their friends and would go lengths to help them. However, loyalty is not always double sided. When there was disloyalty within a relationship, the result usually ended in a catastrophe. For example, when King Aeolus gifted Odysseus the wind in an ox’s skin for his journey home, Odysseus’s crew were suspicious. While Odysseus was asleep, his crew opened the skin, believing there was gold and other riches. Their disloyalty resulted in the wreckage of their ship and the anger of King Aeolus, when he found out. He did not give them another ox skin with wind in it, or a new boat. The crew’s disloyalty lead to broken alliances. In Homer’s epic poem, loyalty lead Odysseus home to his