Obstacles In Odysseus In Homer's Odyssey

Many of the obstacles in Odysseus’s journey could have been easily avoided if it wasn’t for the excessive pride and self confidence caused by Odysseus’s hubris. To have a large amount of hubris requires a lot of self pride or confidence. Odysseus, being a man who exceeds these requirements, causes many troubles for his group because of his hubris. In the beginning of the story Telemachus has many problems with the suitors trying to seduce his mother. They help themselves to food and drink and show no generosity towards Telemachus or Penelope. “ Go home and babble your omens to your children -- / save them from some catastrophe coming soon. / I’m a better hand than you at reading portents. / Flocks of birds go fluttering under the sun's rays, / not all are fraught with …show more content…
You’re some skipper of profiteers, / roving the high seas in his scuddling craft, / reckoning up his freight with a keen eye out , from home-cargo, grabbing the gold can! / You’re no athlete. I see that”’ (196). Odysseus’s hubris took charge, as Odysseus does not take insults to his physical power lightly. This is an example of both Broadsea’s massive amounts of hubris as well as Odysseus’s hubris because of the pride he has for himself. Broadsea being the antagonist in this situation, he was in great distraught when Odysseus prevailed in the games. During Odysseus’s journey over sea he encounters an island full of a small civilization of cyclopes. After Odysseus is captured, escaped, and on his way back at sea, he shouts many insults to the cyclops’s who failed to capture and kill him. Poseidon, the father of the cyclops’s, notices what Odysseus has done and sets obstacles for Odysseus. “So Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew / you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave -- / you with your brute force! Your filthy crimes came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal, / daring to eat your guests in your own house -- / so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back!”