Literature Based Essay

The theory is that when people’s egos are in the way, it causes them to make mistakes and their mistakes make a person realize that their ego affects them, in The Odyssey, by Homer, this dilemma is present for Odysseus. In the beginning of The Odyssey, Odysseus has a huge ego problem. Odysseus was once a generous and successful man, his success and acts of generosity cause his ego to get in the way, and he makes mistakes as a consequence, his ego gets in the way and has failures. When Odysseus realizes his failures, he turns back to his self again. Although, Odysseus was a kind and successful man, his success lead to ego problems which lead to failure and his failures transforms him to the successful Odysseus again.

At the start of The Odyssey, Odysseus was once a kind and successful person. After Odysseus’ success in the war, his ego begins to get in the way leading him to failure. In early scenes of the book, Odysseus was a kind man. Odysseus goes to visit his swineherd, Eumaeus under a disguise. During his visit, Eumaeus starts to talk about how much he misses the old king, Odysseus. Eumaeus says, “The gods, they must have blocked his journey home. He’d treated me well, he would, with a house, a plot of land and a wife you’d gladly prize,” (303). In this quote, it tell us that Eumaeus is a low status man because he lives in a hut and works as a swineherd for the king. We can also tell that Odysseus was once a good king because Eumaeus thinks that, this is the way Odysseus would have treated him. Also, if Odysseus were to give this to Eumaeus it shows that he was a kind king. Throughout the book, Odysseus is no longer seen as a kind and successful person. He acts like an egomaniac that leads him to failures. In this scen...

... middle of paper ...

...self, we can tell his ego is low. Toward the end of The Odyssey, Odysseus is a man that has a low ego. Because Odysseus has a low ego, he transforms back to his old self gain. At the end of the Odyssey, Odysseus is in the midst of killing the suitors that were present in his palace. “...he flung himself at Odysseus, clutched his knees, crying out to the king, ‘I hug your knees, Odysseus-mercy! spare my life!” (449). From here, we learn that Odysseus uses his low points and its uses it to give him strength to become successful again. Odysseus is tactically successful here because he is slaughtering everyone and there are some suitors that are very scared asking for Odysseus to spare their lives.

Although, Odysseus was a kind and successful man, his success lead to ego problems which lead to failure and his failures transforms him to the successful Odysseus again.