Fate And Free Will In Homer's The Odyssey

In Homer’s The Odyssey man, as a whole, faces the overall challenge of deciding who they are and what led them to become that way. Fate is a concept that has ruled many civilizations. The belief in destiny and a higher power are what drive the human race to its full potential. In the epic The Odyssey, they bend their lives to the rule of fate. We are shown both examples of how the humans regard the gods, and how the gods regard the humans. It is apparent, however, that these two views contradict each other. Men appear to put all their burdens upon the gods, while the gods believe that these humans can control their own fate. This controversial topic has plagued humanity for centuries. I believe that Homer wrote this epic poem in order to display the dilemma humanity faces in controlling their decisions to inevitably impact their future. Three somewhat distinct forces shape the lives of men and women these include fate, the interventions of the gods, and the actions of the men and women themselves, usually with help of the gods. Fate can be defined as the

At one point, when in conversation with his aquatances, Zeus, the king of the gods, groans how mortals seem aware of this instability in regards to their gods and goddesses when he says, “Ah how shameless—the way these mortals blame the gods. / From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, / but they themselves with their own reckless ways, / compound their pains beyond their proper share” (Homer I.37-40). What he is suggesting is that the gods are not acting in aggressive (or for that matter benevolent) ways out of random desire—they are either provoked or evoked and react accordingly. Nonetheless, this means that for a character like Odysseus who invokes strong feeling among the gods, he is subject to the utmost goodness and at the same time, the most powerful