Theme Of Pride In The Odyssey

Christopher Reeve once said that “a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” While he showed this by persevering after disconnecting his brain from his spine, Odysseus showed this though his actions. He fought monsters and went through various hardships, but never gave up. Throughout his journey in Homer’s The Odyssey, he portrayed three lessons that can also be learned in real life.

One theme shown in The Odyssey that can be transferred to real life is that excessive pride can be ruinous. Odysseus shows this when he escapes from Polyphemus’s cave. Our protagonist is cleverly able to trick him: he blinds the Cyclops, convincing his adversary that his name is Nobody,

However, this all goes to ruins due to Odysseus’ arrogance. Once escaped, he feels the need to boast to Polyphemus of what he had done. This results in the Cyclops throwing a hilltop at their boat, taking them back to the shore of the island, which could have had dire effects. Even after this, Odysseus is unable to contain himself, and shouts to the giant that “Odysseus, raider of cities, took [his] eye” (9.418). Now that Polyphemus knows his assailant’s name, he calls upon his father Poseidon to curse him. This leads to all of Odysseus’ men being killed, his journey home being long, and “bitter days at home” (9.452). Another time Odysseus demonstrates exuberant pride is when he sails between the goliaths Scylla and Charybdis. Despite being told by the witch Circe that “no power can fight [them] / all that avails is flight” (12. 81-82), he dons his armor in preparation for combat. In the end, he listens to her, after realizing that she was right and he was being overly arrogant. Had Odysseus not realized he could not defeat the monsters, he would have lost more men than he did. One example from real life of vanity is Adolf Hitler. After a few

Odysseus exhibits this on the island of the Lotus Eaters. The natives of the island offer Odysseus’ crew lotuses. However, when two of the men consumed the flowers, the temptation took control over them. It completely consumed their minds, “[longing] to stay forever, browsing on / that native bloom” (9.46-47). Had Odysseus and the rest of the crew given into temptation also, their would have been stranded on the island forever, never to return home. They face temptation yet again on the island of Thrinacia, where the god Helios has his cattle stored. Starving and unable to control themselves, they eat of a few of his herd. Because they were owned by a god, Zeus “sends down a thunderbolt to sink Odysseus’ ship”. If they had not given into their desires, they would have survived. An example of this is Robert Downey, Jr. drug addiction. Since childhood, he had meddled in drugs. After becoming a popular actor, it became worse; it ended with him being arrested multiple times. His life fell into a spiral of drug abuse, and was fired from a show because he never came to rehearsals. He became increasingly less popular, never being hired because he was a risk: producers didn’t know whether he would be arrested again. It wasn’t until he made an attempt to relieve himself of the temptations that he got his life back