Coming home after a prolonged stay anywhere is difficult for anyone. Life has a funny way of moving on regardless of our presence. Reestablishing ourselves in people lives that we care about is the most difficult. I believe that because of this Odysseus’ hardest struggle was finding his place back into the society and family that he left behind. Reuniting with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus was a challenge far more fearful than the ones he encountered. When Odysseus was reunited with Telemachus, Telemachus was in utter disbelief as to his father’s identity even after seeing his transformation from a beggar to his actual form (16.215-220). With his wife Penelope, Odysseus was faced with the challenge of having strangers ransack his
“Our life’s journey of self-discovery is not a straight-line rise from one level of consciousness to another. Instead, it is a series of steep climbs, and flat plateaus, then further climbs. Even though we all approach the journey from different directions, certain of the journey’s characteristics are common for all of us.” Author Stuart Wilde’s impression of journeys and their shared commonalities supports the claim that all journeys have a motive and an outcome. In the epic poem, The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus sets off to defeat Troy, leaving his wife and child behind. After accomplishing his goal, Odysseus faces many problems while trying to return him and his crew back home to Ithaca. Similar to Odysseus’s physical journey, the goal in
Homer’s famous work, The Odyssey, is the epic tale of Odysseus’ decade-long journey to return home from the Trojan War. It was during the finale of the war, Battle of Troy, that Odysseus employed his celebrated Wooden Horse stratagem. His treacherous journey home is marked by catastrophe after catastrophe, but Homer uses these challenges to develop Odysseus’ character, to humble him and to give him knowledge. This essay will examine Odysseus’ identity and its progression throughout the book; the explanation of the metaphor of “home”; ancient Greek society; and the character development of Penelope, Telemachus and the Suitors.
Odysseus faced many challenges and monsters along the way but one of the biggest challenges was when he returned home to his wife Penelope. She was testing Odysseus because he did not believe it was home that really came back. Penelope challenged Odysseus with a bow and arrow . But she said that there was a “ … have sawn that trunk and dragged the frame away” ( Homer 615 ). This is important because of the fact that in The Odyssey the whole story is based on the fact that. Odysseus is coming back home but since his wife does not believe it is him it has to prove to his wife that he came back .
The Character Odysseus in Odyssey "Odyssey" is an epic story that has been a significant piece of literature since it was first composed and will remain so for ages to come. One of the reasons it has been so is because of the hero, Odysseus. Odysseus was one of the first Greek mythic heroes renowned for his brain as well as his muscles. Indeed he is a man with an inquiring mind, and he is also a man with outstanding prowess and bravery" (123helpme.com/assets/3603.html). "We also must not forget that he is a top-notch athlete which only adds more to this seemingly insuperable character.
Epic poems typically contain characters classified as heroic and strong. Odysseus is the main character in this epic poem. He is king Ithaca with a wife and a born son. Odysseus left his home to join in the Trojan War, but his crew was disloyal to gods causing his voyage to be longer than he bargained for. There three traits that Odysseus possesses, and they are the main things that bring him home. While Odysseus is both heroic and strong, he is also brave, responsible, and faithful
All of his heroic deed would have been in vain and no one would have even remembered him. He could not have fought the suitors and proved himself . The act of returning was always the ultimate goal for Odysseus and the temptations of happiness, beauty, immortality, and eternal youth were much harder for him to pass up every time he had to put his life on the line and fight an army or evade a monster. He could have given in to any of the temptations at any time and never had to endure the pain and strife that came from his homeward journey. Without his heroic resources to help him escape the temptations by battling his way out or using his wit to escape he holds on and endures and finally returns.
Going to his journey home, he no longer needed to reach the olive fields with stones that warm in the sun as his child plays, and his wife helps with the harvest. His journey has changed to get his vengeance and in the end die so he can reunite with his family. I bring this up because dieing is a change as is the change Odysseus goes through by essentially becoming no one, a regular Joe so to say. This is what I believe...
After his near decade captivity and escape from Calypso, Odysseus faces many challenges in his attempt to return to Ithaca. Arguably, being held captive so long may have been a shameful period, although being a sex slave for a beautiful goddess wasn’t the worst thing imaginable. With the lack of help from and trust in the gods, Odysseus had heavy weight on his shoulders that would decide whether his fate would be shameful or honorable. A quote from Zeus emphasized this, “Odysseus shall come back by the convoy neither of the gods nor of mortal people, but he shall sail on a jointed raft and, suffering hardships, on the twentieth day make his landfall on fertile Scheria at the country of the Phaiakians who are near the gods in origin, and they will honor him in their hearts as a god, and send him back, by ship, to the beloved land of his fathers, bestowing bronze and hold in abundance upon him, and clothing, more than Odysseus could ever have taken away from Troy, even if he had escaped unharmed with his fair share of the plunder” (Odyssey 5, 30-40). The gods here place trust in the abilities of Odysseus, even though he would very much appreciate some help. Although Odysseus is mortal, he is comparable to immortal heroes due to his strength and leadership. A quality of his that is notable for a great leader was that he wouldn’t ask of his men something he wouldn’t do himself. At times though, he
Although some could possibly call Odysseus, the protagonist of Homer’s The Odyssey, a great leader, the fact that he fails to earn his men’s respect, endangers his men’s lives repeatedly and allows them to die due to his own selfishness states otherwise.
Odysseus was within arms reach of home but because of how naive he was he was forced to keep going on his journey. After all of Aeolus’ hospitality and such a powerful gift Odysseus is still mindless at what this meant and because of him not being cautious, he could not complete his adventure. It’s surprising knowing that after being on a powerful god’s bad side and being forced back to sea, that Odysseus can be even more of a fool.
He eventually went back home after twenty years of leaving. However, he had many adventures in between in his journey. At one point he was trapped- willingly- in an island with Calypso. They were together for nearly seven years. During the last few years, Odysseus had a change of heart and decided that he wanted to leave. When Calypso was ordered to let him go, he confessed, “Yet it is true, each day I long for home, long for the sight of home.” ( Homer, 893). This quotes shows that Odysseus doesn’t just want to leave the Calypso’s island, yet he want to go home. WHen he said “home”, he was talking about his wife, Penelope, and his son Telemachus. Odysseus shows the definition of nostos. He is away from home and he is looking forward to going back. He wants to go back to the comfort of his wife and child. He misses them and believes he will feel safe back at his home. His focus on his family and home give him courage to take the risky actions of traveling through the sea while the God, Poseidon hates
Everytime he is redirected on his journey home the setting in Ithaca becomes more vivid to us, and we want him to go home even more. The settings of the scary island that Odysseus ends up at makes things more tense, and it makes us stay hoping that he returns home. The viewers are always rooting for Odysseus to return home, and the setting makes that more important. The way the characters treat him makes you want him to return home to Penelope and Telemachus. These characters are what makes the importance of him returning home, even more important to us.
The relationship between Odysseus and his wife Penelope is one of loyalty, love, and faith. Both characters are driven by these characteristics. Odysseus displays his loyalty in his constant battle to get home to his wife. This love helps him persevere through the many hardships that he encounters on his journey home. Odysseus spent 20 years trying to return to his home in Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. Along the way he manages to offend both gods and mortals, but through his intelligence, and the guidance of Athena, he manages to finally return home. There he discovers that his home has been overrun by suitors attempting to win Penelope’s hand in marriage. The suitors believed that Odysseus was dead. Odysseus and his son, Telemachus,
Throughout the book every time and after he conquers the new challenges Odysseus answers the question, which is repeated throughout, with a different answer. Each time he conquers a challenge on his journey home he learns a new lesson towards humility and answers with a new perspective. “‘I am no god,’ said the patient, good Odysseus. ‘Why do you take me for an immortal? But I am your father, on whose account you have endured so much sorrow and trouble and suffered persecution at men’s hand.’”(P 214 L 186-189) Although he is viewed by many people as very god-like Odysseus realizes that he is an ordinary man and is not a god. Odysseus’ desire to return home is another example that makes him an everyman. In this epic tale the word home had a double meaning for the hero. Home was where his family was and where he wanted to be. The physical element of being home and with his family was a huge deal for him. The other meaning of home was being safe and secure. His aspiration to return home and to return to his safety in sometimes shows that he is also a rather weak man. It is a human instinct to want to go home and stay safe instead of always being brave and
In The Odyssey, Odysseus's longing for his home and family is what drives the story. That is his one goal in the entire book, and that really states something about his character. In Book 5 we are first introduced to the character Odysseus. The strange thing is that he is weeping to himself when we first meet him. He is weeping because he pines for his family and home as stated in lines 327 and 328, 'Yet it is true, each day I long for home, long for the sight of home.'; As he plainly states, Odysseus greatly misses his home, and his tears show us just how much he misses it. In the duration of the story Odysseus has to make several sacrifices in order to get to the home he longs for so much. In Book 12, Circe foresees that Odysseus will have to let some of his men die. 'The Ithacans set off. But Odysseus never reveals to them Circe's last prophecy – that he will be the only survivor…'; This shows how much he's willing to do and...