The Seven Deadly Sins in The Odyssey Essay Example

The Seven Deadly Sins are a list of vices, or immoralities, within Christianity. Also called the capital vices or cardinal sins, they are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. These bad behaviors and habits are not only seen in Christianity but Greco-Roman writings and stories and have existed before religion. The seven deadly sins are present in many Greek and Roman poems and stories that were written before the Christian religion. With their roots in Greek and Roman tradition, the seven deadly sins predate Christianity and are all represented in Homer’s The Odyssey.

In Homer’s epic poem, hubris plays a big role in the character’s decisions and actions. Excessive pride can be seen in Odysseus, the main character of The Odyssey. During his journey, Odysseus and his crew land on the island of the cyclopes. He wanted to explore a cave and steal resources from it. When the cyclops that lives in it, Polyphemus, came back, the crew was trapped and ended up losing men and Odysseus made enemies with Polyphemus and his father, Neptune. Odysseus’s pride gets the best of him because “it is his idea to explore Polyphemus' cave in the first place, looking for loot. His men want to steal a few provisions and run off. It is Odysseus who holds them there, in the hope that the giant will give him some particularly exciting gift of guest-friendship”(Miller 5). Odysseus was expecting to be treated with kindness by a cyclops whose home they invaded and robbed. Odysseus’s hubris made him think he was superior and ended up losing many of his men because of it. 

Greed also put the crew in a worse position than before. The crew had stopped on the island of the sun god and were strictly ordered not to kill the cattle that live there. When starvation had taken over the crew, Eurylochus tried to convince his crewmates that “‘All deaths are bad enough but there is none so bad as famine. Why should not [they] drive in the best of these cows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal Rods?’”(Homer 12). He had managed to convince them and they killed the cattle. The sun god told Jove and he swore to wreck their ship. The greed of the crewmates destroyed their ship and made Odysseus and the gods very angry. 

Lust is seen in the poem at Odysseus’s home when he is on his journey back home. Without Odysseus at home to keep the house in order, Telemachus lost control and it became home to many suitors trying to marry Odysseus’s wife, Penelope. Not only were the suitors wreaking havoc in the house, but the maids added to it. Telemachus notices the maids “going, with laughter and jests, to meet their lovers among the suitors...it is a form of unfaithfulness for them to give themselves to the suitors of their own will”(Fränkel 4). The maids betrayed Odysseus and Telemachus by giving in to their lust and siding with the suitors.

Along with all the other mistakes Odysseus’s crew has made, their jealousy caused them to make more. Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag of winds but the crew did not know what was inside. Envious, one of the crewmates said “‘Quick- let us see what it all is, and how much gold and silver there is in the sack he gave him.' Thus they talked and evil counsels prevailed. They loosed the sack, whereupon the wind flew howling forth and raised a storm that carried us weeping out to sea and away from our own country”(Homer 10). The crew was almost at their home they had been away from for decades and they caused a huge setback since Aeolus refused to give him anything else. 

Gluttony also plays a role in keeping the crew from getting home. They had made their way to the land of the Lotus Eaters. Odysseus refused it, but the rest of the crew began to eat “‘the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return’”(Homer 9). Odysseus was wise the Lotus Eaters were not able to hypnotize him. On the other hand, the crew members ate it and their gluttony kept them there until Odysseus had tied them to the ship. 

Violence and gruesome scenes are abundant in The Odyssey. The wrath of the monsters in this poem terrified the crew and even Odysseus, especially Scylla. Scylla is a six-headed monster the crew had to face on their journey to Ithaca. Odysseus describes his encounter with Scylla saying that she “‘[landed] these panting creatures on her rock and [munched] them up at the mouth of her den, while they screamed and stretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony'’”(Homer 12). Odysseus says this was the worst thing he had seen on his journey. Homer’s use of gory imagery illustrates the wrath of Scylla and just how violent the monsters Odysseus faced were. 

On the less violent side, the last deadly sin, sloth, is evident in the suitors’ lazy behavior. After the suitors take over Telemachus’s home, he gets tired of it and complains to the people. He says that the suitors are giving him a lot of trouble and “‘day by day they keep hanging about my father's house, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink’”(Homer 2). This shows that the suitors just sit around at Telemachus’s home, eating and drinking all they want. The suitors’ careless behavior is seen many times throughout the poem.

The seven deadly sins are seen even before Christianity and are present in Greek and Roman writings including The Odyssey. Homer’s epic poem with gods, monsters, and mortals has all seven deadly sins incorporated into it. The gluttony, greed, and envy of the crew, the pride of Odysseus, the wrath of the monsters, the lust of the maids, and the sloth of the suitors represent these sins. They steered the story and caused the characters to say and do what they did. Although these behaviors, unfortunately, bring negativity and unwise decisions, they show how such god-like heroes are still human and make mistakes.