The main highlights of The Odyssey are the trials Odysseus had to go through to get home after the big war he survived (The Trojan war). He was put in charge of a ship.He and his ship escaped warriors who sank all the other ships. Then they started their journey home.
One of the earliest trials of Odysseus was his escape from Polyphemus.Polyphemus was a giant cyclops that was extremely inhospitable and barbaric, who slew three of Odysseus’ men with his bare hands, ripped their arms off, and ate them. Odysseus was not pleased, so he took advantage of the fact that cyclopes only have one eye. He made a long, sharp pole with a tree, set the end on fire, sharpened it, and gave Polyphemus a lot of wine. He told Polyphemus his name was “No man” and plunged the sharpened pole in his eye. When his fellow cyclopes herd his wail, they came up to see what happened. When he said, ” No man just stabbed my eye out!”, they figured that was Polyphemus telling them that nobody did anything to him and that everything was alright (which I find pretty hilarious). Then Odysseus and his men tied themselves to the bottom of Polyphemus’ sheep, and when the sheep passed, The men ran down to their ship, and barely escaped.
Another of Odysseus' trials is when his ship sank. All of his crew died, except Odysseus, who fastened for himself a life raft and escaped. He went on a lively three-day swim with just a piece of wood to hold him above the water, all while Poseidon, the god of the sea, was doing all he could to sink him. Fighting the drowsiness and fatigue, he swam all the way to an island, met princess Nausicaa, and went into her kingdom (once again, he escaped 100% odds that he would not live).
The last trial Odysseus endured through his journey was to slay the suitors who had invaded his house. There were about 108 suitors and almost all of them were cruel men who plotted the death of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, simply because he asked them to leave. Odysseus disguised himself as a beggar, scouting the place out, and told the maids to lock specific doors. Then he showed that he was Odysseus by picking up the bow that none of the suitors could string, stringing it, and shooting it through the loopholes of a bunch of axes lined up. He then sent the next few arrows flying through the suitors necks while Telemachus grabbed spears. They had a good father/son time killing the suitors and leaving the disloyal maids to clean up the mess. The maids had been rude and treacherous, so Telemachus had them all hanged.
One of the highlights of The Odyssey is the large number of trials (If I mentioned all of them then this would be a 50-paragraph essay). Odysseus suffered much on his 20-year journey home, but made it, and learned a lot of moral lessons along the way.
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