Though the gods are there to punish people who commit immoral acts, people have a choice to commit the act or not. A person blaming the gods for an immoral act that he has committed will not take away from the fact that he is still guilty of committing that act. Therefore, it is a person’s greed or folly that causes his suffering; the gods’ decision does not cause the suffering. The gods do not decide to make a person suffer without good reason. The gods punish those who deserve to suffer. In Homer’s The Odyssey, the gods control the immoral acts of man by punishing Odysseus and his crew for the immoral blinding of Cyclops, for opening Aeolus’s bag of wind due to reckless curiosity, and for eating Helios’s cattle. Agelaus is punished for threatening Athena and Odysseus receives help from Athena because Odysseus is a war hero. Homer has clearly shown through the character Odysseus that cleverness and determination, not the forces of fate, determine success. The gods punish Odysseus and his crew because Odysseus blinds Cyclops and takes pride in telling him who did it. Odysseus shoves a burning stake in the eye of Cyclops so that he and his crew could escape from Cyclops’ cave. The gods punish Odysseus and his crew for this act by not allowing them to return home for ten years. Odysseus and his men suffer as they try to get home. Poseidon punishes Odysseus and his crew because Cyclops is Poseidon’s son. Poseidon avenging his son is not the cause of Odysseus and his crew’s suffering; it is Odysseus who causes their suffering. Odysseus and his crew escape Cyclops’ cave, but Odysseus turns back to say to Cyclops that it is Odysseus who blinded Cyclops. (226-227) If Odysseus did not turn back and tell Cyclops that it was he who hit him in his eye, and then Odysseus and his crew would be home.
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