Examples Of Arrogance In The Odyssey

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What makes a hero? From the story of “The Odyssey” by Homer. Odysseus is arrogant, unfaithful, and selfish. He shows these traits throughout “The Odyssey” while on his journey back home to Ithaca. He displays arrogance when he tells Polyphemus his name after they have escaped from the island of the cyclops and are sailing away. Arrogance is the act of revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance. Odysseus does not stop to think about the consequences that may come from telling Polyphemus his name. Because he does this, Polyphemus is able to put a curse on Odysseus that makes his journey home treacherous. An argument that could be had is that even though he let it go to his head, he still saved the rest of his men from being devoured by the cyclops. An answer to this is that the rest of his men may have survived the journey home, had he not bragged about his victory over the cyclops. After they had escaped the cyclops they became stranded on Circes Island, where he shows unfaithfulness to his wife by staying with Circe. …show more content…
Time is distorted there so he spends a few years there until he realizes that they have been there too long. Circe then turns his men back into humans after she had turned them into pigs. An argument for this standing could be that Circe is a goddess and could have somehow enchanted Odysseus while he was on the island. A response to this could be that if he really loved her, he would have been able to resist the charms of the goddess and could have left the island sooner to be with Penelope. After they had set sail from the island with advice from Circe they encounter Scylla and