Odysseus Cruelty In Homer's Odyssey

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Upon his return home after twenty years, Odysseus slaughters all the wooers of his wife, Penelope with the help of his son, Telemachus despite the pleas of mercy from some of them. He even murders all the servants and even the priest. I believe that the killings of many of the wooers, servants and priest were severe and brutal. While the killings of some of the wooers were justified, the slaughter of the other wooers, servants and priest were not justified in my mind. Odysseus could have definitely punished them in a less harsh manner. When Odysseus returned home after twenty years, he discovered that wooers had invaded, feasted and plundered Odysseus’s home. They stayed in his house, ate his food, drank his wine, slept with his maid servants …show more content…

They might have had no choice in being disloyal to Odysseus. The servants might have had no choice and done it out of fear of being hurt and even killed if they had they not complied with the requests of the wooers. The wooers could have threatened Odysseus later had he spared their lives, however the servants could not have done the same thing. The servants neither had the resources nor the ambitions the wooers had. Also unlike the wooers, the servants were not trained how to fight. So killing the servants mercilessly was completely unnecessary and I see no valid reason for Odysseus in doing so. Instead, he could have just banished them and let them go to find their own fate. One of the men staying at Odysseus’ house was actually a priest who claimed he was forced to stay there by the other wooers. This angered Odysseus who mercilessly killed the priest without interrogating him. This action on the part of Odysseus was not justified in my opinion. In conclusion, I believe that while Odysseus’ killing of some of the wooers is justifiable, he definitely gets blind-sighted and carried away with his urge for revenge and bloodshed. A less harsher form of punishment could have been inflicted by Odysseus upon some of the wooers, servants and priest whose disloyalty and crime were in no way comparable to those of the arrogant wooers like

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