Temptations In The Odyssey

The Odyssey is the epic story of a warrior named Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War and being held captive by Calypso, a passionate nymph, for seven years. The epic recounts the many encounters and adventurous endeavors Odysseus and his men are involved in during the long return to Ithaca. During his odyssey, many laudable adversaries, primarily in the form of temptations, karmic justice and arrogance, that confront him and his hubristic, fatuous men.

Earlier in the story, there were many tempters that distracted Odysseus and his men, such as the natives of an island they found that offered them sweet lotus flowers, which only served to hinder their progress and ensnare many of the men with their saccharine flavor and addictiveness. Another major temptation is the very nymph that trapped Odysseus and held him on an island for seven years. He wanted to leave due to his wife and son waiting for him, but was tempted to stay longer than he needed to, as the nymph was a skilled temptress.
Odysseus’s arrogance is often shown through his seemingly oblivious nature when in the face of what many would consider certain demise.
There are many instances in which he appears to be blissfully ignorant of his surroundings and the mammoth, prominent peril that he is consistently surrounded by. He meets most of his adversities with a sense of confident uncertainty, which creates many situations of danger and difficulty, primarily for his men, due to their cowardice in comparison to his brave
arrogance.

One such situation is the scene in which the Cyclopes, Polyphemus, captures Odysseus and his men, and Odysseus haughtily stands up to the behemoth, leading to him ravenously devouring many of his men. This brutal slaughter gave Odysseus the comeuppance he needed to devise a plan of escape, and helped show the reader and Odysseus that he and his men are not impervious to destruction. In response, however, he and his men inebriate the creature and drive a scorching rod of wood into its eye, boiling it and blinding the beast-like giant, allowing for them to escape from it, and resume their arduous trek back to Ithaca.

Many of the actions of the characters in the epic are met with another action later on, in accordance to what it was that they did. This is known as karma, which is the philosophy that if someone does a something benevolent, a good thing will happen to him or her or a bad thing will happen if he or she does something immoral. Many of the negative actions have major repercussions for Odysseus and his men, such as when the one of his men was tempted to, and opened the bag of winds, which sent them back to where their odyssey began, effectively nullifying the five years of travelling and adversity.