Theme Of Arrogance In The Odyssey

Odyssey Essay In the comedy epic, The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus is not a good leader because his arrogance caused his crew members to pass away and the lack of trust from his crew made him unable to control his crew. Odysseus’s arrogance leads to his crew dying. For example, while Odysseus and his crew are approaching Scylla, Odysseus knows that six sailors will die. However, he says, “I told them nothing, as they could do nothing” (ln 620-621). Odysseus is implying that, as they approach Scylla, six sailors will get eaten. However, he won’t tell them, because he thinks they cannot do anything to change their fate. Odysseus could have told the sailors and spent time searching for a way to avoid losing six sailors. He even holds out
His arrogance affects his judgement, and since he will survive because he is not out paddling, he is quick to choose the easiest plan. For materials, Odysseus’s crew raids the cyclop’s cave. The crew wishes to leave with the items but Odysseus says, “Ah, how sound that was! Yet I refused, I wished to see the cave man, what he had to offer” to his audience(ln 154-155). The crew could have been easily on their journey without any crew member dying. However, Odysseus decides to not take his crew members’ advice and wants to stay and negotiate with the cyclops, thinking he can get materials from him. If needed, Odysseus and his crew cannot fight him normal terms. This leads to the death of six crew members. Even as Odysseus and the remaining crew leave the island, he still recklessly brags against the cyclops in which the cyclops luckily misses the boulder
Odysseus receives a bag of wind from Aeolus that contains all the bad weather. However, if the bag is opened then all the bad weather will be released. His crew opens the bag of wind while he’s asleep, even though Odysseus clearly tells them not to. Unfortunately, due to the lack of trust between the crew and Odysseus, the crew thought the bag contained treasure. While Odysseus is asleep, his crew opens the bag and the and weather sends them all the way back to Aeolus’s island. The crew had the thought that hiding treasure from them is something Odysseus would do. If Odysseus had more trust from his crew, they could’ve been home to Ithaca seven years earlier. A similar event happens when Odysseus tells the crew to not eat Helios’s cattle or the crew will be punished. However, the crew again does not listen. The crew sustains one month of being stuck on the island by Zeus with low food supply. While Odysseus is asleep, Eurylochus gathers up the crew and persuades them to eat the cattle(ln 716). Eurylochus is able to make the crew disobey Odysseus’s orders in a short speech, which means Odysseus’s constant reminder not to eat the cattle does not matter to the crew. His crew is under control for one month while starving. However, as soon as Zeus forces Odysseus to sleep, the crew go and disobey Odysseus’s orders. This ends up with every crew member being punished by Zeus and they all drown except for