Characteristics Of Odysseus: Not A Good Man

Odysseus, King of Ithaca leaves his son, wife, and friends to travel to the Trojan war. After 10 long years at war, it comes time to travel back home to Penelope. Ten long years of being sent places by force, and going places by choice. Being disloyal to the ones he loves, he finally makes it home to run his kingdom again: Twenty years later. Odysseus may seem like a great loyal leader, but in reality he is not. Although Odysseus is a good man by trying hard to get home to Penelope, he is also a not a good man because he stays certain places for unnecessary amounts of times and sleeps with other women.
My first reason why Odysseus is not a good man is because he doesn’t show loyalty towards Penelope. While on his way home to Ithaca and Penelope, Odysseus sleeps with Circe:
Because he’s been away from his family and kingdom for so long everyone thinks he is never coming home “In suffering for that man; / for me in relentless, heartbreaking grief for him, / lost and gone so long now-dead or alive, who knows?(Homer 4. 121-126). This is showing that Odysseus is not a good leader because he left a kingdom who needs a king, without one. Odysseus has been gone at the Trojan War for 10 years (Homer 9. 259-253). Therefore it takes 10 years just to travel home. Odysseus travels many places in which are necessary and unnecessary to go to. If Odysseus didn’t choose to go to many of the places that he did, then his journey may have turned out much different. For example, if he hadn’t bumped into Charybdis and Scylla, he wouldn’t have lost his ships and all of his men (Homer 12. 460-484). Although Odysseus comes home with none of his crew, he still is a king who returns to his kingdom “ I am son of Laertes,known to the world / for every kind of craft-my fame has reached the skies. / Sunny Ithaca is my home” (Homer 9. 21-23). Because he is a king everyone looks up to