The Odyssey Group

Question:

rathergood11
rathergood11
Student
High School - 9th Grade

Which postive and negative character traits does Odysseus demonstrate in his adventure with the Cyclops?

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Posted by rathergood11 on Thursday January 22, 2009 at 12:33 PM and tagged with character traits, characters, cyclops, odysseus, the odyssey.

Answers:


  1. troutmiller Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    Odysseus is very clever when dealing with the cyclops Polyphemus.  First of all, he lies to him when he is asked about his ship.  He claims that it was destroyed.  He does this so Polyphemus doesn't go out and destroy it himself.  Then he tricks him into drinking the wine so that they could blind him.  Lastly, he came up with the idea to hide under the sheep so that they could escape out of the cave without the blind Polyphemus knowing about it.

    The one downfall to Odysseus character in this section is that he taunts Polyphemus.  He gets carried away, and he boasts about what he has done and how he has tricked him and got away with it.  Odysseus wants that fame, so he makes sure that Polyphemus knows his name and where he's from so that he can tell all who ruined him.  This then allows Polyphemus to curse him.  This curse is what creates such a hard trip home for him and the death of his crew.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/odyssey/book-9-summary-analysis
    http://www.enotes.com/odyssey/characters

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    Posted by troutmiller on Thursday January 22, 2009 at 2:25 PM