The epic story “The Odyssey” Is basically a love story. It’s about the loyalty and love between a husband and wife, two lovers, and the cunning and trickery needed to reunite them, after a long absence. It’s a story about a man and women who are separated for 10 years and remain loyal to each other because their love is so strong. It’s also about the loyalty between a father and his son and also between their friends. Throughout the story we see many examples of this loyalty. Odysseus is the husband of Queen Penelope and the father of Prince Telemachus.
This loyal love is evident in the first book when the muse says, “Much as you long to see your wife, the one you pine for all your days”. Others, like Eurykleia’s loyalty to Odysseus’s household are seen in her love for Telemachos, whom she treats like her own son. When Odysseus is on his long journey the submission to temptation or recklessness neither angers the gods nor distracts Odysseus and the members of his crew from their journey home. The crew always remains loyal to their leader.
Throughout the story, trickery, disguises, and deceptions are used to reunite the family and we see many examples of this. A prelude of this trickery is described in the beginning of the story in book 1, when Homer says, “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy”. There are many occurrences of Odysseus loyalty.
Circe and Calypso are the most obvious examples of women whose love becomes an obstacle to Odysseus’s return. When Odysseus travels to the island of Ogygia, Odysseus admits that his wife cannot compare with Calypso. Calypso is a beautiful nymph who falls in love with Odysseus when he lands...
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...and fire an arrow through a row of twelve axes, a feat that only Odysseus has ever been able to accomplish. This trick results from her awareness that only her husband can win it. She may even recognize her husband before she admits it to him. Athena does not become fully involved in the battle, she prefers instead to watch Odysseus fight and prevail on his own. Athena is confident, practical, clever, a master of disguises, and a great warrior.
The wedding bed in Book 23 symbolizes the constancy of Penelope and Odysseus’s marriage. Only a single maidservant has ever seen the bed, and it is where the happy couple spends its first night in together since Odysseus’s departure for Troy ten years earlier. The symbolism is heightened by the trick that Penelope uses to test Odysseus, which revolves around the immovability of their bed, a metaphor for their steadfast love.
Homer’s The Odyssey, a magnificent story of lust, deceit, greed, and heroism, still fascinates scholars and casual readers alike today in the same way it fascinated its audience at the time it was written. The Odyssey, a journey of determination, patience, and virtue, tells the tail of Odysseus, the main character, on his voyage home to Ithaka after the end of the Trojan War. Odysseus goes through many unforeseen trials and tribulations, which exemplify his character. During these different happenings, Odysseus makes decisions that do not correspond to his character.
The Odyssey is a tale that has changed literature and storytelling. In this tale Odysseus is a Soldier from the battle of Troy trying to get home to his island of Ithaca, where he is king. His wife and son must wait ten years while he is trying to make his way home. In Odysseus’s absence wooer’s, or better known as suitors, learn of his absence and travel to Ithaca to win his wife’s hand in marriage. These men come every day feasting on Odysseus’s food and wine, and give his servant’s orders. His son Telemachus, does his best to keep the suitors from ruining his fathers house but he is only a boy, and doesn’t receive the respect of an adult. Telemachus then has a visit from the god Athena, whom Odysseus is friends with, who advises him to travel to find out about his father. In his travels he hears that Odysseus may still be alive. Meanwhile Odysseus goes through a series of adventures and hardships that prove his wisdom. It is interesting in contrast of the Iliad, even though Achilles was much stronger and a better warrior, Odysseus was portrayed as a greater hero due to his wisdom. He uses this wisdom to escape from the Cyclops.
However, his journey isn’t over yet. This last leg of Odysseus’s journey is perhaps the most important and crucial. Odysseus’s nurse and maidservant, Eurycleia is the first woman in Ithaca to know that Odysseus is back after she recognizes the scar on his leg while she is washing him. Eurycleia vows to keep his identity a secret. Odysseus’s wife, Penelope has stayed faithful to Odysseus for all the years that he was gone. Penelope was consistently unweaving her web to the delay the suitors. The reader even grows sympathetic for Penelope as “we see her struggle to make the virtuous choice about her marriage, despite pressures from her suitors, her son’s endangered situation, and her own uncertainty about Odysseus’s survival” (Foley ). Finally, Odysseus reveals his identity and Penelope is bewildered, but quickly embraces her husband after he tells her the secret of their immovable bed. It is the faithfulness of Penelope and nurse Eurycleia that insures Odysseus’s survival to the very end.
Odysseus, meanwhile, was shipwrecked on his journey home from Troy. He is trapped on the island of the beautiful goddess Calypso. ...
The Odyssey is a well-known epic poem of ancient Greek. The poem is a great story that shows the power of gods, the way they treat others, and the strong spirit of the hero Odysseus. The Odyssey is about the King Odysseus of Ithaca who had to fight and overcome many obstacles and dangers in order to find a way back home. However, there are controversies about this book which are whether or not the virtue of justice does exist and if Odysseus is a just man.
The first major female character introduced in this epic is Penelope. Penelope is the wife of Odysseus, and the mother of Telemachus. She is portrayed as a strong-willed widow, who even after not seeing Odysseus for twenty years, keeps her trust in her husband to return home. The main tool is the rule of law, but even before laws customs could be used” (rwaag.org).
Throughout the Odyssey, there are many relationships that represent love between two people. These relationships show loyalty, compassion, and the wanting to be near one another. Two of these kinds of relationships are between Odysseus and Telemakhos, and Odysseus and Penelope.
Odysseus on numerous occasions, is unfaithful to Penelope. Penelope however, remains loyal to Odysseus and she is praised by greek society for it while Odysseus is never seen as adulterous for his disloyalty. However, one could argue that Odysseus’s relationship with Calypso is non-consensual, as she used her power over him as a goddess to control him and keep him on the island. In the end, however, Penelope and Telemachus are the main reasons Odysseus continues his journey home to Ithaca. The other marriage we are introduced to is the relationship between Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra. When Agamemnon returned from war, his wife and her lover murdered him. He sees this as a cruel act of deceit, despite the fact that he killed their daughter. Agamemnon views Clytemnestra, and other women as evil and untrustworthy. In book eleven he tells Odysseus, “So, there’s nothing more deadly, bestial than a women set on works like these, what a monstrous thing she plotted, slaughtered her own lawful husband!” Agamemnon makes this generalization and doesn’t take into consideration that he also cheated on his wife and probably murdered numerous
_The Odyssey_ is believed to have been written by Homer and is infused with loyalty throughout the entire epic story. Odysseus is the most faithful, loving, and loyal husband, to Penelope, that any woman could dream of. Odysseus, in the beginning of his description of the trials and tribulations that he has endured, pledged his eternal loyalty to his ever-faithful wife Penelope. ?We are mortal weary and sick at heart/? [if only] now may I see once more/ my hall, my lands, my people before I die!? (Homer 7:233-240). Thought Odysseus did lie with the goddess his loyalty to Penelope held true. The ?Enchantress in her beauty? (Homer 7:274) enslaved the grand Odysseus to her will; yet Odysseus ?in [his] heart [he] never gave consent.? (Homer 7:276) The goddess offered Odysseus a choice, the ?promise [that he] should be/ immortal, [and] youthful, all the days to come? (Homer 7:275-276) or to continue his long continuous voyage to his queen Penelope. Because Odysseus chose to return to his devoted Penelope instead of gaining immortal life he has provided...
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,
A main purpose of women in the poem is to define the characters of Odysseus and Penelope. Women's seductive natures serve as a test of character for Odysseus. His choice to leave the sexual pleasures of Kirke and Calypso is proof of his virtue and desirability as a husband. The same depiction causes the virtuous Penelope to stand out in the large pool of vileness as a desirable wife. The contradictions also have a significant affect on the poem and the reader.
Some of the major relationships in the story are the relationship between Odysseus and his men, because they view as a hero and are willing to do anything for him. Odysseus also has a very close bond with Telemachus, his son, and his loyalty to his father can be seen when he travels to Sparta to look for his father when he has been absent for so long and near the end when he helps his father defeat the suitors. An important negative relationship that Odysseus has is his relationship with the suitor Antinous. When Odysseus returns, Antinous and his men are trying to take over his house, ...
Often times in life we search for a companion, someone to share our love and life with. Odysseus and Penelope's lasting relationship is an obvious representation of love in the Odyssey. Although Odysseus is gone for twenty years he never forgets his faithful wife in Ithaca. This love helps him persevere through the many hardships that he encounters on his journey home. Penelope also exemplifies this same kind of love for Odysseus. At home in Ithaca, she stays loyal to Odysseus by unraveling his shroud and delaying her marriage to the suitors that are courting her. She always keeps the hope that her love, Odysseus, will return. Odysseus and Penelope's marriage clearly illustrates the theme of love.
In ancient Greece, the Gods’ power has constantly been praised and known as the God’s Love. In Homer’s Epic, what has really attracted my attention is how God in his highest love Odysseus and been always with him during his journey. Odysseus also knew that he would not be alive if he was not praising the names of Gods especially with the goddess Athena.
middle of paper ... ... In Homer’s Odyssey, both Odysseus and his son Telemachus embark on long, difficult journeys; Odysseus trying to return from Troy to his home in Ithaca, escaping Calypso and the island of Ogygia, and Telemachus from Ithaca to Pylos and Sparta in search of his lost father. While The Odyssey tells of the courage both men demonstrate during their respective travels, their quests are the results of the intentions and desires of gods. Odysseus is trapped in exile on Ogygia by the will of Poseidon, whose anger Odysseus attracts when he blinds the Cyclops Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, and by the love of Calypso, who wishes to make Odysseus her husband.