Morality In The Odyssey

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Homer’s Odyssey is a Greek epic poem that focuses on a Greek hero Odysseus, who is the king of Ithaca. On Odysseus’s journey back to his homeland you find that the Odyssey implements a plethora of gruesome and violent events filled with monsters and Gods. Despite all of the malevolent events, the Odyssey shows that a true hero must have good morals. The four key factors of morality that are portrayed throughout the story are Loyalty, Self-Restraint, Perseverance, and Compassion. Loyalty the first moral aspect is a very important piece in the Odyssey because it is the igniter of Odysseus's adventures. Odysseus has an uncanny amount of devotion towards his country, crewmen and most importantly his family. When Odysseus was stuck on calypso’s island of Ogygia, Calypso fell in love with him and would refuse to let him leave, but Odysseus would state “what I …show more content…
An example of this is when Odysseus and his men would pass the beautiful Sirens, but he would have them plug his ears with cotton so he would be able to resist their beautiful seductive noises. Odysseus in talking about the Sirens stated “So they sang, in sweet utterance and the heart within me desired to listen, and I signaled my companions to set me free, nodding with my brows, but they leaned on and rowed hard, and Perimedes and Eurylochus, rising up, straightway fastened me with even more lashings and squeezed me together” (Odyssey 12.184). This quote may look like Odysseus did not show self-control because he told his men to set him free because the heart within him desired to listen to the Sirens. In turn, this is actually a prime example of self-control because by telling his men to restrain him purposely and keep him grounded is the ability to control one's emotions and desires which are exactly what self-control