The Moral Ambiguity of Odysseus

Adira 1
Adira McNally
Mr. Caleb Nelson
AP English and Composition
23 October 2014
The Moral Ambiguity of Odysseus in The Odyssey The Odyssey is an epic poem full of morally ambiguous characters. Few people in the book live a moral life. Telemachus lies to his mother, Calypso seduces Odysseus, and Penelope claims to love Odysseus but continues to lead on her suitors and convinces them to give her gifts. Out of all the Homeric characters though, Odysseus is repeatedly shown, mainly due to his function as the protagonist, to be by far the most morally ambiguous character. Despite his heroic motives and highly intelligent qualities, Odysseus is still a deceptive character whose unwise decisions are what shapes The Odyssey into the tale that it is. Out of all Homeric characters, Odysseus is one of the most intelligent and cunning. Repeatedly in The Odyssey, Odysseus demonstrates his exceptional cleverness and wit, though not without a penalty. One large example of this is in Chapter 9 with the Cyclops. Odysseus, in an effort to save his men from the monster, easily outsmarts the Cyclops by playing with words and deceiving the Cyclops. This, as all deception must, has the consequence of enacting Poseidon's wrath upon Odysseus. Despite that, Odysseus continues to use deception throughout the poem whenever he needs or wants to get something his way. He continues this all the way to the end when after the slaughter of the suitors, he tells his staff to make sure the noise heard was assumed to be the sound of a wedding celebration. Adira 2 Lies are what seem to make the Homeric world go around and Odysseus was the king of them. However, he was not called the great teller of tales simply for his lies, he also was extremely talented in storytelling and persuading. All those he meets who are not immediately against his cause, he enthralls with tales of his adventures. Since The Odyssey in no way is a Christian story, it is to be expected that the morality of all of the characters would be twisted. Odysseus’ cleverness is not a bad thing by itself but when it comes to what he does with his intelligence he is very obviously a morally ambiguous character. The driving purpose of Odysseus’ journey is that he wishes to return home to be with his family again, which is not a negative motive, but when it comes to him remaining faithful to his wife whom he apparently loves, one would think he would not even let himself be tempted by characters such as Calypso, Circe and even the Sirens. Odysseus’ decisions are what shape the plot of the story. While lying is what kept him alive with the Cyclops, it ended up incurring the wrath of Poseidon. While Calypso might have killed Odysseus if he had tried to leave her island, Odysseus should have found some alternative to being unfaithful to Penelope and avoided being trapped for so long. Had his decisions been morally right, he would have made his way home in far shorter a time and the poem would be reduced to at least half its current length. Odysseus with his throne of lies is a big part of the poem’s idea of deception that is carried out by nearly every character.