1， The Cyclopsnamed Polyphemus：traps Odysseus and some of his crew in his cave. He eats six of them and then gets blinded by Odysseus. Odysseus uses his cunning skills to get out of the cave undetected by the Cyclops. He does this by getting the Cyclops drunk. Then, he blinds him with a wooden stake. He and his crew escape from Polyphemus' cave by hiding under sheep.
The Cyclops, because he has only one eye, represents
people who see through only one perspective. This is normally not a good quality. You should either avoid these people or attempt to broaden their narrow-mindedness. 2，Circe：A nymph who lives on Aeaea and changes Odysseus'
crew into swine. Odysseus then threatens her and makes her turn his crew back into men. She then helps him by telling him that if he wants to go home, he must first go to the Underworld and talk to a seer. Circe represents wealth. If you abuse it, you will get \Odysseus' crew saw her lustrous palace and their greed made them go inside without thinking. You should never let your greed control you.
3，The Sirens：Women who live on an island and lure men to
thier doom by singing about the men's pasts. Odysseus passes by the their place and listens to their song while tied down. He does this after leaving Circe's island in which the nymph tells him to listen (if he wants to) to the Sirens' songs. The Sirens sing about Odysseus' past (the Trojan War). The Sirens represent people who try to make you live in the past. When you encounter these kinds of people, you must resist them and force yourself to focus on the future. The future is much more important than the past. Anything bad that happened in the past can
be excused by something in the future, and anything good that happened in the past can be ruined by something in the future. 4，The Suitors： Princes and lords who are in Odysseus' palace
and want to marry Penelope, Odysseus' loyal wife. They are all killed by Odysseus, along with Telemachus, the cowherd, and the swineherd. For more information about what happened to them, click here. The suitors are basically led by two men: Antinous and
Eurymachus. The Suitors were especially important in The Odyssey but what do they represent in our lives? The Suitors in the book are a big problem faced by
Odysseus when he finally gets back to his home, Ithaca. This, therefore, shows that no matter how close you are to your final goal, there will often be an obstacle preventing you from reaching that goal. You must do anything possible (but it still must be reasonable) to remove the obstacle. 5，The Lotus Eaters： People who eat a plant that makes them
forget about home and want to stay there to eat more. They are visited by Odysseus and his crew while going to Aeaea. A couple of Odysseus' crew members, when scouting, were given the drug and got highly addicted to it. This made them forget about their homes. Therefore, Odysseus dragged them back to his ships. These legendary people stand for many things in our journey though life. First and foremost, they stand for drugs, an obvious reason. Drugs can make you forget about everything important in your life. Another thing they can stand for is the certain things that distract you from getting to a place or destination. These distractions can influence you
completely, making you forget virtually everything, much
like drugs do. If you encounter one of these distractions, you must ignore it and stay focused on your journey.
6，Scylla ： A six-headed monster that snatches six men, one
for each of her heads, whenever a ship sails by. She lives in a cave opposite from the whirlpool, Charybdis. Also, Odysseus is told by Circe to pass her cave while
journeying back to his homeland. Scylla's six heads snatch six men quickly to their doom. This shows how quickly an accident or tragedy can happen in real life and what unpredictable circumstances can arise. If a sudden tragedy happens to you or someone you know, you must bear it, like Odysseus did.
7，Charybdis：A giant whirlpool monster that swallows
Odysseus' ship when he is returning from Thrinacia. She is opposite Scylla. Charybdis opens for a period of time, and closes for an equal amount of time. When his ship is
swallowed, Odysseus hangs onto a branch until Charybdis closes. Charybdis is not only opposite Scylla because of where she is, but she is also opposite because of what she does. Unlike Scylla, Charybdis sucks her victims in slowly. She represents things in your life that take you in very gradually, but once you do get \very harmful to you. When you encounter these kinds of things, you must stop before it is too late. The more you have been \ 8，Poseidon：The god of the sea who punishes Odysseus for
blinding his son, Polyphemus. He makes Odysseus'
journey home as long as possible and very hard. The god does this by creating a storm whenever Odysseus is out on the open sea and by punishing those that try to help
Odysseus get home. The god Poseidon symbolizes a force always opposing you, thwarting your passage and trying to prevent you from achieving your goals. The force
could be anything, from a mental disability to feeling grief to someone who despises you. But, if you try to achieve your goal extremely hard, and never even think about
giving up, good will eventually overcome evil as shown by Odysseus reaching home.