Theme Of Pride In The Odyssey

Christopher Reeve once said that “a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” While he showed this by persevering after disconnecting his brain from his spine, Odysseus showed this though his actions. He fought monsters and went through various hardships, but never gave up. Throughout his journey in Homer’s The Odyssey, he portrayed three lessons that can also be learned in real life.

One theme shown in The Odyssey that can be transferred to real life is that excessive pride can be ruinous. Odysseus shows this when he escapes from Polyphemus’s cave. Our protagonist is cleverly able to trick him: he blinds the Cyclops, convincing his adversary that his name is Nobody,

and his men escape underneath the bellies of sheep.

However, this all goes to ruins due to Odysseus’ arrogance. Once escaped, he feels the need to boast to Polyphemus of what he had done. This results in the Cyclops throwing a hilltop at their boat, taking them back to the shore of the island, which could have had dire effects. Even after this, Odysseus is unable to contain himself, and shouts to the giant that “Odysseus, raider of cities, took [his] eye” (9.418). Now that Polyphemus knows his assailant’s name, he calls upon his father Poseidon to curse him. This leads to all of Odysseus’ men being killed, his journey home being long, and “bitter days at home” (9.452). Another time Odysseus demonstrates exuberant pride is when he sails between the goliaths Scylla and Charybdis. Despite being told by the witch Circe that “no power can fight [them] / all that avails is flight” (12. 81-82), he dons his armor in preparation for combat. In the end, he listens to her, after realizing that she was right and he was being overly arrogant. Had Odysseus not realized he could not defeat the monsters, he would have lost more men than he did. One example from real life of vanity is Adolf Hitler. After a few

victories early on, he believed himself to be unvanquishable. He did not listen to his generals’ advice, including the time when they told him not to invade Russia. They faced a manifold of defeats on the eastern front, and gained nothing of it. Another example of Hitler’s hubris was halting at the Battle at Dunkirk in 1940, in which he could have exterminated Britain’s forces. However, he believed he could sway them into joining him to fight against Russia. This plan failed, and Britain became one of the biggest Allied offenders in World War II. Like Odysseus, Hitler’s conceit led to his downfall.
A second lesson I have seen in both my life and The Odyssey is to be persistent even when the situation seems dire. The main character portrays this throughout the entirety of the epic poem. It takes him ten years to return home, facing various monsters and threats, all of which could have stopped him. Through all of this, he remains relentless in trying to get home. One threat was the lady Circe. Half of his men travel onto her island with the man Eurylochus, who is the only to return. The rest are enchanted by Circe and turned into swine. Odysseus resolves to save them, though Eurylochus “begs [Odysseus] to sail away from Circe’s island” (920), as the mission seems impossible. However, Odysseus is determined to help his friends. With the help of the god Hermes, he is able to turn Circe from foe to friend (or rather, lover) and she releases his men. When he finally returns home, he finds himself facing over a hundred men striving to steal his wife and crown. The poem compares Odysseus to a man stranded in the water after his ship was destroyed: “few men can keep alive through a big surf (23.445). Although defeating them seems difficult, he manages through all of this and is finally reunited with his love “in joy, knowing the abyss behind” (23.447) after twenty years apart. The composer Ludwig van Beethoven also demonstrates this theme. At the age of 26, Beethoven gradually began to lose his hearing, and would become almost entirely deaf in 20 years. Through this, he continued to compose music. During this time period, he wrote the Ninth Symphony, which is considered to be one of the greatest piece of music of all time. I have also shown this to a lesser extent during my first year of cross country. For a few weeks during the beginning of the season, running was very difficult to do: I had never ran before. Regardless of this, I persevered, and I improved because of it. By the end of the season, I was immensely better.
Another lesson learned in The Odyssey by people everywhere is not to give into temptation, for doing so often has bad results.

Odysseus exhibits this on the island of the Lotus Eaters. The natives of the island offer Odysseus’ crew lotuses. However, when two of the men consumed the flowers, the temptation took control over them. It completely consumed their minds, “[longing] to stay forever, browsing on / that native bloom” (9.46-47). Had Odysseus and the rest of the crew given into temptation also, their would have been stranded on the island forever, never to return home. They face temptation yet again on the island of Thrinacia, where the god Helios has his cattle stored. Starving and unable to control themselves, they eat of a few of his herd. Because they were owned by a god, Zeus “sends down a thunderbolt to sink Odysseus’ ship”. If they had not given into their desires, they would have survived. An example of this is Robert Downey, Jr. drug addiction. Since childhood, he had meddled in drugs. After becoming a popular actor, it became worse; it ended with him being arrested multiple times. His life fell into a spiral of drug abuse, and was fired from a show because he never came to rehearsals. He became increasingly less popular, never being hired because he was a risk: producers didn’t know whether he would be arrested again. It wasn’t until he made an attempt to relieve himself of the temptations that he got his life back

together.
Three lessons that can be learned from Homer’s The Odyssey are not to have excessive pride, to always be persistent, and to never give into temptation of something that could have dreadful consequences. By exhibiting these throughout the poem, Odysseus is a hero. Many people from the real world also show these. An example is Christopher Reeves, who by remaining brave after receiving life-threatening injuries showed himself to be a hero, teaching us that anybody can be heroic if they wish to.