What Were Odysseus’ Strengths and Weaknesses?
Odysseus has many strengths, such as courage, intelligence, nobility, confidence and ambition; however, he also has weaknesses such as a love of glory, severe pride, a quick temper and a lack of patience. Odysseus is a character in Homer’s “The Odyssey,” which is an epic with multiple “books” or chapters.
In many of Homer’s stories, the heroes care very much about getting “glory,” which is called “kleos” in Greek. They want to win this glory through great deeds. Homer’s characters are typically static meaning that they do not change throughout the course of the story or journey. They maintain their strengths and weaknesses without any new growth.
In Odysseus, his weakness of pride causes him to alert the Cyclops to his identity as well as earn Poseidon’s wrath. Homer does give Odysseus a slight change and a little bit of growth by the end of the story when Odysseus is more likely to be patient. His strengths, such as his intellect, help him to escape from the Cyclops cave in the ninth book of the story. He is also able to gain people’s trust due to his affable nature and ability to communicate articulately, such as when he gains the trust of Nausicaa on the Scheria island.
