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Odysseus is the main character of Homer’s epic poem of the Greek mythology, the Odyssey, which tells his great adventures on the way to Ithaca, his homeland, back from the Trojan War. Homer embroiders the Odyssey by making Odysseus both a great hero and like other men, being mostly a larger than life figure, but also sometimes weak like an ordinary man. He has remarkable traits such as guile and intelligence, courage and strength, authority and cold-bloodedness, foresightedness; however he also has flaws such as pride, curiosity, and sometimes an ordinary man’s fears.
Odysseus is famous with his extreme guile and cunning above all. As he struggles to arrive at Ithaca he encounters many perils, he manages to survive every one of them with his intelligence and resourcefulness. On the island of the Cyclopes, when the brutal, cannibal giant Cyclops Polyphemus imprisons Odysseus and his crew in his cave, Odysseus comes up with a brilliant idea to escape from there. Because they cannot move the giant rock from the entrance, he doesn’t kill Polyphemus; instead he intoxicates him with wine, and blinds his one and only eye. Polyphemus then removes the rock to take out his herds, groping their tops to make sure that Odysseus and his men don’t escape. Odysseus and the crew hide under the rams as they go out. Thus they escape Polyphemus and take also the rams with them. Odysseus saves their lives by his intelligence and he uses his brain to survive.
Odysseus is foresighted, and he has an ability to estimate the consequences when ordinary men cannot. In the land of the Cyclopes Odysseus reveals he is foresighted along with his wits and resourcefulness. He holds himself from killing the Cyclops when he eats two of his men, foreseeing they would be trapped in the cave because of the barricading rock. He calculates the possible outcomes of alternatives. For example, he chooses the peril of Scylla rather than Charybdis to prevent the sinking of the ship.
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