Odysseus Traits Essay free essay sample

Mcmahon The Odyssey is an epic poem by Homer. The epic is about a king, Odysseus who rules Ithica, located in Greece. Odysseus is sent to the Trojan war. Odysseus and his men make many attempts to make their way home. Over a course of 10 years, Odysseus and his men make many dangerous, yet exciting journeys across the Mediterranean Sea. A good leader should have self-control, physical strength and a lot of perseverance. I think Odysseus shows those characteristics plenty of time throughout the epic. Odysseus shows self-control when he resists stabbing the Cyclops in the eye with the sharpened tree trunk. He must be intelligent to come up with such a well thought out plan, by getting the Cyclops drunk and waiting for the Cyclops to pass out before stabbing him. If Odysseus would have rushed the plan wouldn’t have worked because, there was a huge boulder in front of the exit to the cave that only the Cyclops could’ve moved. We will write a custom essay sample on Odysseus Traits Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The plan was just brilliant. He must also care about his men because, every time the Cyclops ate one of his men, Odysseus got emotional and upset. Another example of how Odysseus shows self-control is when him and his crew encounter the lotus eaters. The lotus was an addictive plant like drug, when you first eat the lotus you never want to stop eating it. When Odysseus and his men first arrived on the land Odysseus made a precautionary decision to send two of his men to go and investigate the land. When Odysseus notices that his crew has been gone for some time, Odysseus decides to go look for them. When Odysseus finds his two crew members, he discovers that they are eating the lotus. The lotus eaters offer Odysseus the lotus but he turns it down. That is how Odysseus shows self-control in that example. Instead of leaving his men, Odysseus grabs them and brings them back to the ship like a good leader should. That’s a good leader, no one is left behind. Odysseus shows his second good leader trait, physical-strength in many examples. One example of showing Odysseus’ physical-strength is when he pierces the Cyclops eye with his men using the sharpened tree trunk. This shows that Odysseus must be in pretty good shape and is pretty strong. He must be if he is able to carry out a task of that sort. Another example of Odysseus being physically- trong is when Odysseus and his men are trying to escape the Cyclops’ cave and Odysseus has to tie his men to the sheep leaving himself without restraints. He had to hold on with his bare physical strength for dear life with no brakes in between. That also must’ve taken a lot of endurance to hold on for that long. The third characteristic of a good leader is perseve rance. Odysseus shows this characteristic the whole epic poem. Odysseus still keeps try to get home after 10 years of suffering the war and 10 years of trying to get home. He has a lot of courage and more endurance to keep trying to get home also. Odysseus must have missed his home a great deal to go through all of that trouble to get home. Its incredible that he still had hope of getting home after all of those years of suffering. The second example of Odysseus showing perseverance is how he kept his cool when him and his men were captured by the Cyclops. He never gave up on his men or his will to get home. He kept on fighting. That’s my opinion on how Odysseus, the king of Ithica in Homer’s epic poem is an outstanding leader. He shows self-control, physical-strength and perseverance and 100 other traits that make Odysseus a good leader.