Odysseus' Divine Mission

The range of perspectives from which the Odyssey is viewed produces sometimes essentially incompatible readings. These unreconciled differences derive not only from the different points of view that the poem leaves open to interpritation, but also from the extraordinary richness of its characters. When viewed as simply an action-adventure story, what happens to the hero is accidental, and the interest lies in a series of daring escapes brought about by the hero's cleverness, stamina, and tenacity; all admirable qualities, if not necessities. But the Odyssey, I am convinced, requires that one recognize its great spiritual significance at the same time that it recognizes Odysseus as a complex and typically human character. His success at the end of the poem is not accidental, but founded on the recognition and acceptance of his divine mission, and on harmonizing his own will with that of the divine. The purpose of my essay is to try and make clear those parallel distinctions fundamental to understanding both the Odyssey itself, and the assumptions it makes with respect to the relations between divine and human interactions.

We are introduced to our hero, as most epics tend to, in the middle of his story, being held captive by the "softly-braided nymph" Kalypso. The only thing we are made aware of, here, is the divine will set forth by Zues (prompted by Athena): "that we, whose will is not subject to error, order Odysseus home"(V, 34-35). The divine machinery which sets Odysseus free through the agency of Hermes is accompanied by the hero's effective resolution to accept his human lot and leave Kalypso's paradise. What he lacked for a time was the courage to commit himself once more to the dangers that such a journey intel; a jo...

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... the wooden horse. This imposes on himself the hardest task of all for such a passionate and action-loving man. He holds his peace and leaves the satisfaction of his cause to be determined by the gods. This shift of power to the principle of justice marks the extraordinary moral revolution which occurs in the Odyssey and in the character of its hero. His divine "mission" is the greatest known to man -to discover himself and his world and to act effectively in accordance with these discoveries. Such a view as this sees his return as more than a huge mishap, but recognizes both the established moral order of the Odyssey's universe and the hero's gradual discovery of that order through suffering and error.