Thursday, December 22, 2016

What is the most dangerous flaw in characters in The Odyssey?

It seems that pride is really the most dangerous flaw in The Odyssey because his pride is, many times, what prevents Odysseus from getting home.  

Odysseus's pride almost gets him and his crew killed when he insists on taunting Polyphemus, the Cyclops who they have just blinded, and telling the monster his real name.  Polyphemus cannot see the ship sailing away, but when Odysseus shouts to him, he begins to hurl giant rocks in their direction, forcing their ships back to shore.  Odysseus shouts, 



"Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks you who it was that inflicted upon your eye this shameful blinding, tell him that you were blinded by Odysseus, sacker of cities. Laertes is his father, and he makes his home on Ithaka" (9.500-505).



He tells Polyphemus his real name because he wants the monster to know, to be able to tell others, who has bested him: clearly, this is a proud moment for Odysseus.  Yet it almost leads to his own and his men's deaths as a result.  Ironically, the flaw Odysseus points out is the cyclops's own pride, pride which resulted in his being blinded by Odysseus.  To this end, he shouts,



"Cyclops, in the end it was no weak man’s companions you were to eat by violence and force in your hollow cave, and your evil deeds were to catch up with you, and be too strong for you, hard one, who dared to eat your own guests in your own house, so Zeus and the rest of the gods have punished you" (9.475-479).



Thus, it is Polyphemus's own pride that gets him in trouble.  However, it is also Odysseus's act of rubbing it in and telling Polyphemus his name, that allows the monster to tell his father, Poseidon, who it was that injured him.  Therefore, Odysseus's pride ends up getting him in trouble with the god who controls the sea which is his only means of getting home.  Odysseus's pride, then, extends his absence from home because he has angered Poseidon who now seeks to prevent his return.


We can also trace the debacle with the bag of winds given to Odysseus by Aeolus back to his pride as well.  Rather than tell his men what is in the sack, he hides it from them, thinking that -- as their leader -- he doesn't need to tell them this information.  They, then, assume the bag is filled with treasure and, when Odysseus falls asleep just as they can see their home shores, they open it, releasing all the winds and blowing their ship far away from home again.  If Odysseus would have simply been honest with them and not felt too proud to share his knowledge with them, they would not have betrayed him.

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