Deception and Disguise: Keys to Survival

          My journey of trying to get back to Ithaca is tough. It calls for perseverance, courage, physical and mental strength, and wits. Wits are probably the most important. Nobody who’s not smart could go through what I’m going through right now. I think that a way to maybe keep on surviving is to disguise myself and act cunningly. After all, my cunningness saved me from the Cyclops; I gave him some wine, and he drank it until he was pretty drunk. Then, I told him that my name was ‘nobody’ before I shoved that burning stake into his eye. It was pretty funny when the Cyclops screamed, “Nobody blinded me, or nobody hurt me!” Because of my cunningness, all the other Cyclopes thought the other Cyclops was crazy and probably had too much to drink, which he did. I made fun of him while we rowed away from the island on which he lived. I told him that we completely won and dominated him. For a second I was laughing, but a huge boulder landed a few feet away from my ship. That monster can throw. After a while, I told him it was me, that Odysseus that blinded him, but he threw a giant chunk of a cliff toward my ship. My friends and shipmates on the ship were pleading with me to stop, so I decided to, so they wouldn’t get too angry with me. The point is, telling the Cyclops that my name was ‘nobody’ is the reason why other Cyclops didn’t gang up on us and tear us up. If I want to keep on surviving, I think disguising myself and being deceptive is the key for survival. I sometimes deceive others not necessarily to bring harm to them. For example, when I washed up on the Phaeciean’s land, I saw a girl washing clothes and playing with her friends after I woke up from the previous night, where I’d just managed to get out of a giant storm. The girl was kind enough to hand me some clothes and give me some food. I asked her if I could go back with her to the palace, but we decided that it was best for me to take disguise, hide in the gardens for a while, and go to the palace without the girl so nobody would think I was on a date with her, especially when so many men were trying to marry her. So, I went with our plan, and weirdly enough, a strange fog kind of followed me everywhere I went. I guess this helped me, since not too many people could have spotted me. Eventually, I came across a girl who guided me to the palace. The point here is that, if I walked with the princess, many of the men who were trying to marry her would be mad at me, since I, not giving any effort towards the princess, would have looked like I was going on a date with her. In short, I think it’s safe to say that deception and disguise can be used for my safety and also my companions’ safety.