Odyssey

The Odyssey is a poem of the adventure of Odysseus and his men returning home from the battle of Troy. Along his journey he keeps running into trouble. He gets trapped in a cave with a Cyclops and some of his men get eaten. He also gets into trouble when they pass the island of the Sirens. He manages to get passed without getting any of his men killed. Then they head towards the Underworld. Afterwards they head to Circe, who tells them that they have two paths. They can either head into the cave of Scylla, where six men are guarenteed to die, or they could head towards Charibdis, a giant whirlpool. They decide to go to Scylla and, as promised, six of his men die. After him and his remaining men get out of the cave, they head onward. They land on an island of cattle, which they can't kill or they shall all die except for Odysseus. The men kill and eat the cattle anyways and Zeus decides to wreck their ship by making it go towards Charibdis. Odysseus jumps on a tree hanging over the water and watches as the rest of his men get swallowed by the whirlpool.

When Odysseus and his men land on the island of the Cyclops, they bring the best wine in hopes of their hospitality. Instead, they get trapped in the cave with Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon. Polyphemus eats some of his men. After a couple days, Odysseus comes up with a scheme. He offers the Cyclops some of his great wine. After three barrels of wine, the Cyclops is feeling tipsy. He tells Odysseus that for sharing his wine, he will eat him last. The Cyclops asks him his name and Odysseus replies "My name is Nohbdy". The Cyclops, being very gullible and stupid, believes him. After a while, Polyphemus passed out. That's when Odysseus and his men decide to finish out their plan. They sharpened a piece of wood, stuck it in the fire, and rammed it into Polyphemus's eye. He jumps awake and starts yelling out for the other Cyclops'. They arrive at his cave and say "Who has hurt you Polyphemus?" and Polyphemus replies "Nohbdy has hurt me, Nohbdy." The others replied "Well if nobody has hurt you, then stop whining and go back to bed." Odysseus realizes that blinding the Cyclops still doesn't get him and his men out of the cave. So he comes up with another plan; he'll tie his men and himself to the bottom of the sheep and in the morning, when Polyphemus lets out his sheep, they'll get out too. Him and his men finally reach the ship, with some of Polyphemus's sheep, and Odysseus decides to get cocky. He yells out to Polyphemus, "It was I, Odysseus, King of Ithica who blinded you. Not Nohbdy." Well of course Polyphemus heard him. He came out and started throwing giant boulders at where he heard the ship rocking in the water. He barely missed every time. Then, giving up on throwing rocks, he prays to his father, Poseidon God of the Sea, to never let Odysseus and his men reach Ithica again. And if he couldn't do that, then let Odysseus return alone.

In conclusion, I believe that Odysseus didn't learn any morals or lessons from his experience. If he had learned his lesson the first time they got into trouble, all of his men wouldn't have died. He had some good ideas to get them out fo trouble, but he wouldn't have needed to if he hadn't gotten them into it in the first place.