A Character Analysis Of Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

When Odysseus and his men reach the island, Aiolos is hesitant at first to seek out Kirke and he wants to turn back. However, some of Odysseus’ men decide to seek her out anyways. When they go to her place, she greets them with a feast and wine. However, even though it looked like she was being nice, she was actually drugging them and she turned them into pigs. “bodies, voices, heads, and bristles, all swinish now, though minds were still unchanged” (264-265). So, even though their bodies appeared as swine, their minds were still as they were before. This could be more creul because they still felt that they were human, and they still had all of their memories, but they were still pigs. After she turns them into pigs, she then violates xenia even more by feeding them pig food, rather than human food.

She then says “’Down in the sty and snore among the rest’” (360). As one can clearly see, Kirke is not showing hospitality, or Xenia, to Odysseus or his men. She even insults Odysseus by talking to him the way she did. But when he pulls his sword, and she realizes that her drugs do not work on him, she offers to sleep with him. She does this so that “mutual trust may come of play and love” (377). However, Odysseus claims that she will try to take his manhood if he enters her bed. If this is true, and she really was going to try this, then she definitely would not have been a good host. She swore she would not try this, so they made