Essay On The Odyssey Being Cunning

Odysseus’s cunning nature is shown from the very beginning of his journey returning from Troy after the war. After the conclusion of the war, his godly enemies as well as others ruined his chances of returning home and made any chance of getting home near impossible for Odysseus to return.Throughout the ensuing journey home to Ithaca chronicled in the Odyssey, it is shown how important being sly and cunning are. Homer demonstrates throughout his epic poem The Odyssey, that being clever, sly, and cunning is important to achieving one’s goals and surviving through hardships. Only by exhibiting these qualities when faced with challenges such as killing his enemies, escaping a bloodthirsty cyclops, and finding a way to safely pass by the deadly

They trick the other cyclopes by Odysseus telling that his name is “ No Man” and then escape under the bellies of sheep to avoid death. Odysseus shows the importance of being cunning when he fools the cyclops in order to allow him to execute his escape plan and avoid certain death. After two of Odysseus’s men are savagely eaten by the cyclops, Odysseus is confronted and asked his name. He responds to the cyclops with “Noman is my name. They call me Noman— My mother, my father, and all my friends, too.’ (364-365)” By fooling the cyclops about his name he is able to prevent any other cyclopes from coming to the aid of the one he’s escaping from. After he blinded it, it keeps calling out “No man blinded me,” and no one thinks anything of it. This allows Odysseus to escape from the cave without the other cyclopes knowing what was going on. Odysseus also demonstrates the importance of cleverness in how he planned and executed a genius way of escape past the blinded cyclops. He tied each of his men, as well as himself, to the bottom of one of the the sheep so that they could pass by the cyclops undetected when the sheep wandered out to the fields. This cunning strategy proved to work when; “their master, worn out with pain, felt along the backs of all of the sheep as they walked by, the fool, unaware of the men under their fleecy chests.”(438-441) Odysseus

Odysseus is clever enough to plan for this dangerous excursion he knows that him and his crew will have to face by forcing them to cover their ears. Odysseus knows of the impending dangers they could face and as a result commands to his crew, “ She ordered me alone to listen. Bind me Hand and foot upright in the mast-step And tie the ends of the rope to the mast. If I command you and plead with you To release me, just tie me up tighter.”(167-172) Odysseus demonstrates cleverness and intelligence in his plan for surviving the sirens. Once his crew have all plugged their ears and he is bound to the mast, they set sail past the island of the Sirens where Odysseus’s plan works exactly as planned and his entire crew survives. Odysseus’s cleverness and cunning in creating a plan to sneak past the Sirens unharmed saved his crew's life as well as his own. This clever act is another example which shows the importance of cleverness and cunning in order to survive in the Odyssey. Only by having these qualities did Odysseus make it through the Siren’s and