I’ll be discussing the interactions between Polyphemus and Odysseus in Book 9.
On page 220, Odysseus lies to Polyphemus about his ships, predicting what the Cyclops would do to his crew, and later on Odysseus fools the Cyclops by telling them his name is Nobody. These interactions show a considerable amount of courage and self-control on Odysseus’s part. This giant monster shows that he does not fear the gods, and while Odysseus is trapped in the cave with the monster, he is still thinking about protecting his crew. Along with the courage he initially shows with his conversation with the Cyclops, he shows that he has a lot of self control by not killing the monster in its sleep. The monster who had slain two of his crew and eaten them would have caused a lot of fear and rage in most people. He is able to ignore those feelings and restrained himself from killing the monster, which would have avenged his fallen crew mates and protected himself from getting eaten. While initially, in Odysseus’s telling of his interactions with the Cyclops, Odysseus shows how well he can control himself, he gives into his emotions near the end of his stay with the Cyclops. He starts taunting Polyphemus and even revealed his real name. This mistake allowed Polyphemus to request revenge from Poseidon. All of the hatred from Poseidon could have been avoided if Odysseus kept quiet and left without provoking Polyphemus. After all of the foresight Odysseus seemed to have in escaping the island, he threw it all away by giving into his feelings towards Polyphemus because he thought he was safe now.
A lesser part of this interaction I want to talk about is on page 226. Odysseus calls Polyphemus a cannibal, but Polyphemus does not seem to be a human. If Odysseus is right in his accusation of Polyphemus, that would mean that Cyclops and humans are closely related. I can’t quite understand why a one-eyed giant and a much smaller two-eyed human could be considered the same.
-Ryan Huang