The Journey Of Odysseus In Homer's The Odyssey

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The Odyssey follows the journey of Odysseus from the first book, The Illiad. The journey begins when Odysseus departs for the Trojan War, leaving his newborn baby Telemachus and beloved wife Penelope. Then his path back home turns into atonement after he angers Poseidon. Odysseus goes on a physical journey that has a tangible destination, Ithaca. Casted away to the island of Calypso after killing Poseidon’s son, Cyclops Polyphemus, Odysseus is cursed to be held away from his homeland.
Poseidon, filled with fury, grants Cyclops’ wishes and crashes Odysseus’ ship so he stays with Calypso, crashes the ship again to slow him down from reaching Phaeacians’ city, and interferes by creating storms. Poseidon tortures Odysseus by preventing him from …show more content…

He is driven to make it back to Ithaca because of his wife and his son. As they become the main impetus, other secondary characters help the development of the plot of the story. The interactions between Odysseus and other characters are quite minimal due to moving characteristic of his journey. As Odysseus physically moves one place to the other, he encounters numerous people who motivate and help him. The smaller stories of his adventure shouldn’t be neglected, despite of how insignificant they might seem. Even though the stories of his smaller adventures may not greatly affect the plot, they provide insight to Odysseus’ thoughts and feelings. His tiredness of the war and loneliness, and his mourning for Penelope’s absence are often witnessed via the conversations he has with others. Homer steadily reminds the readers of the purpose of the journey; the journey itself isn’t as significant as the reason for it, which is to return to his family. Seeing the dawn of homeland may be one of the wishes Odysseus may have, but being with his family overrules other items on the list. In other words, the physical journey of Odysseus is to fulfill the emotional needs of family love from Penelope and

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