Ethical Issues In The Odyssey Essay

Ethical issues are problems that involve a group or a specific person who needs to make a decision that is determined to be right or wrong. It is common amongst the literature used in this essay to see conflicts within the characters themselves. In other words, the person who is making the decision has a struggle from within, in regards to which decision they should take. Compositions of works that have characters who struggle with moral decisions from within, and later grow from their life decisions, are known as bildungsromans. There have been many pieces throughout history that assimilate to this literary genre. One of which, The odyssey, will be used in this essay. Throughout this paper I will discuss the ethical issues of bribery, deception, …show more content…
Gilgamesh is bribed by the goddess Ishtar when she says “Be you my husband, and I will be your wife. I will have harnessed for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold, with wheels of gold and 'horns' copper. It will be harnessed with great storming mountain mules! Come Into our house, with the fragrance of cedar.” A similar offer is made to Odysseus by Calypso where she says “Good luck to you, even so. Farewell! But if you only knew, down deep, what pains are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore, you’d stay right here, preside in our house with me and be immortal.” Gilgamesh and Odysseus were both offered things of great value if they decided to stay with these women. This type of bribery is wrong because it almost forced the men into haste decisions that could have greatly affected their lives. Another example of bribery would be the women in The Lysistrata where they withheld sex from their husbands so that they would not go to war. This example in The Lysistrata could be where bribery has an exception to be good because although the women used the men’s weakness of sex against them for the greater good of the people that lived in the cities of ancient Greece. Sadly, not all ethical issues can have

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