Odysseus’ Leadership

The reader questions Odysseus’s leadership skills justifiably when he does not make right choices as a leader for his crew. He seeks to benefit himself and Overuses his Greek values. This is evident when Odysseus tells the story of his experience with the one-eyed Cyclops. Odysseus took a small group from the ship’s crew and they “quickly made its way to his cave but we failed to find the host inside” (9:241-242). Odysseus walks into the cave and “wide-eyed at it all” his crew saw the racks of drying cheese, young lambs, and buckets filled with whey. Odysseus, despite pleading and begging from his crew, stated that “he would not give way-/ and how much better it would have been-/ not till I saw him, saw what gifts he’d give”(9:256-259) would he then leave. He then finds that the owner and people of the land were savage and barbaric people with an enormous amount of strength who killed and ate most of his party when he saw them. One sees his leadership skills being challenged when he ignores his crew’s begging to leave, which leads to some of the deaths of some of men. Their death was caused by his greediness to get a gift by the host of the house. We also see that when he tricks the Cyclops, Polythemus, and then escapes by blinding him, he boasts to him about how he, Odysseus, a mere human, defeated a mighty Cyclops. Polythemus then begins to throw boulders at his ship because he could hear Odysseus’s taunts, which pulls them closer to the shore. His crew tries to quiet Odysseus for fear that the Cyclops might hear them and smash the ship into pieces. Odysseus also makes a grave mistake that makes the Cyclops stop; Odysseus had told Polythemus his name. Apparently, from fate Polythemus happened to be Poseidon’s son. So, at the sound of his name he prayed, “come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca, never reaches home” (9:588-589). Odysseus has made many terrible choices it is up to the reader to decide if they are justified.