The Image Of The Cyclops In Homer's Odyssey

In this book, Odysseus is telling the story to the Phaeacians and their king Alcinous about his voyages, and in this case, the story includes a cyclops who is the son of Poseidon. Odysseus tells of how he blinded the cyclops and got cursed by Poseidon. In this passage, Odysseus is describing the home of the cyclops where his crew and he had landed. Imagery is used in order to give us a clear image of the cyclops home. This imagery also portrays to us that the cyclops have no desire to leave because they have everything provided for them. The unplowed soil and untamed fields suggest that the cyclops are lazy and don't do anything. It is clear that the cyclops have never left because in this passage it says “For the Cyclops have no ships with crimson prows, any shipwrights there to build them good trim craft that could sail them out to foreign ports of call as most men risk the seas to trade with other men.” The cyclops clearly do not interact with humans and we find out later in the chapter that they are separated even from their own kind.

The first is they don't need too, and this passage shows that they have everything they need at their disposal whether or not they chose to use it. The second is they probably think they are above humans because they are given everything by the gods. Later in the book, we realize that the cyclops are not afraid of the gods, and might consider themselves better than the gods. Because they believe they are superior to humans, they might think it would be bad too trade and communicate with inferior people. The beautiful landscape could symbolize laziness. All the islands that Odysseus has been too the most beautiful island, like the ones of the nymphs, the people are always