The Hero Of Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

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Although the main hero of an epic is supposed to be seen as an unstoppable person, due to their fallible nature, they are not perfect and do have flaws that further put them in danger. This is no exception for Odysseus, the hero in the epic, The Odyssey. In this novel, he is seen as a powerful king whose name alone is respected among all. However, as mentioned before, he is prone to demonstrating the negative aspects in his personality, putting himself and others around him in danger. While Odysseus can be described as clever, courageous, and determined, his curiosity and tendency to make bad decisions after victories has a habit of leading to troublesome situations for himself and his crewmates. To start, Odysseus is hailed as a legendary …show more content…
To start, Odysseus is a curious person being equally as determined to know as much of a situation as possible. For example, on arriving on the island of Kyklopes, Odysseus and his men are greeted by the luscious assortment of cheeses and lambs. Sadly, while his men are telling Odysseus to take this collection and return to their ship, Odysseus decided that, ‘I wished to see the cavemen, what he had to offer” (9.248-50). As a result, he and his men end up trapped in a cave with a man-eating giant who takes the lives of several of Odysseus’s crewmen. As well as this, Odysseus does tend to make terrible choices in the heat of the moment that does lead to drastic and negative consequences for him and his men. For instance, after barely escaping with their lives from the treacherous hands of the blinded Polyphemus, Odysseus, whose name was unknown to Polyphemus, decides to reveal his identity to Polyphemus. This was not what his crewmen had wished for him to do, rather, they wanted him to stop teasing Polyphemus to escape a watery death. As a result, Odysseus and his men were cursed by painful travels and death for most of them by Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, whose waters they were using as