The Role Of Metaphors In Homer's Odyssey

The ship analogy presents three metaphors encircling the political system of old Athens. The captain is at the helm by virtue of his ownership of the ship rather than his seamanship. The crew desires his position because they desire the prestige and power associated with ownership and are confident in their own seamanship. However, they misinterpret the captain's position at the helm to represent naval ability. In reality, the navigator who reads the stars and interprets weather patterns to guide the ship is the real naval talent. Since the crew assumes that power equates ability they cannot understand the role the guide plays and thus fatally dismissing the navigator's role aboard the ship. If the crew disregards the navigator (which they inevitably will, thinking them useless) the ship will be unable to run smoothly and serve it's proper

function.

Plato presents this to explain the diminished role of the philosopher in the government and express his grievances with the Greek democracy model. This is similar in some regards to the analogy of the chariot, when the horses of passion and appetite threaten to overtake the weaker horse of reason. The horse of reason is able to steer much like the navigator. However, it being the weakest horse, passion and appetite may lead the chariot astray in the pursuit of pleasure. (elaborate a little on their overlap, soul vs state? conclude more solidly)

In both the plant and beast analogies Plato explores the prevailing culture of Athenian society. A valuable plant requires a good environment to grow virtuous and healthy and a plant raised in poor soil and choked with weeds grows the opposite. The philosopher therefore does not grow corrupted by a singular influence but by habitat. Nor does a philosopher grow

corrupted but rather fails to grow at all — a robust plant being inhibited by a poor environment worse than a plant of lower quality. Plato suggests a poor environment is more popular opinion (perhaps the same popular opinion that fails to utilize philosophy from the ship analogy) than the tradition of sophism. It is the prevailing opinions of society that stunt the growth of philosophical learning. Proper gardening of the love of wisdom is required to throw off the shackles of status quo. Otherwise weeds (fear of punishment, ease, pleasure, vice) will grow up around a plant and destroy it. Likewise, the beast analogy disparages popular opinion. A master of a wild beast eventually learns to placate by whatever means they're able. Because of this experience they consider themselves an expert and may therefore seek to teach others how to placate their beasts. However, the master has no real sense of what about their method is right or wrong except observing the reaction of the creature. They come to believe that what pleases the beast is right and good and what upsets or angers the beast is wrong and bad. In Plato's analogy the beast is public opinion and the master is anyone who panders to it. If an individual merely observes the public and bases their moral understanding around the opinions and prejudices of the "beast" the individual thereby only has a shallow sense of what is right and wrong.