Odyssey: Greek Gods and Heroes - Term Paper Example

Odyssey in the Greek gods and Heroes Introduction Odyssey is a hero in the Greek. Odyssey, a work written byHomer, a poet, is among the best literature work written in the ancient and talks about a man, Odyssey, depicted as a hero in this book, tries to find his way back home from the Trojan War. Both books of Homer, the Iliad, and Odyssey, Homer depict the fact that the Greek uphold the competition of desires between kleos and nostos. The kleos and nostos may mean the desire for an individual to die happily during the battle and the desire for an individual to have a quiet death in the bed and in the presence of the family members. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss the world of Odyssey and how it depicts the honor or how the Greek gods and heroes control the actions of an individual. Therefore, Odyssey is a hero in this case (Gould and Herington 23). The question whether Odyssey is the hero of the Greek especially in the ancient Greek is still a very debatable matter. Several critics have steered an argument over this matter but the conclusion is that many people know that Odyssey is a Greek hero in the ancient literature. There are several reasons, which back up this argument concerning Odysseus’ heroism in the ancient Greek (Guthrie 56). The backing reasons include, first, Odyssey proves to be a hero in both the spiritual world and in the physical world. Odyssey is a hero in the physical manner because he is able to overcome all the dangers he passed through, after wondering for ten years in the wilderness and fighting, he became brave enough to survive and be able to return home safely. The main intention of Homer was to show the readers of the poem the dangers that Odysseus went through throughout his life in the war and on his journey back home (Finley 66). In other words, in case Homer did not want to portray Odysseus as a hero; he would not have to let him undergo this entire voyage because the fact that Odysseus underwent the voyage shows that he is a hero. In terms of the spiritual hero, Odysseus remains very faithful to his wife and family. Despite the fact that he stayed out fighting for so long, about twenty years, he still thought of his wife and family and that gave him enough strength to fight. He became very determined to win the war so that he could go back home to his wife and family. On his way back home, he defiles mortality two times. He takes good care of his mortality, which is like driving a force that gives him enough strength to face all the difficulties that he comes across in his journey. Odysseus posses some level of wit and is bright in an amazing way, he saves the Greeks from the Trojan war and hew was behind the success of the Greeks in the war that they were participating in the ten years. Odysseus initiated the great idea of the Trojan horse, which they used in fighting for ten years (Gould and Herington 99). The aspect of Odysseus being clever and witty is evident in the Odyssey where he is said to be a man of many wiles and the difficult situations he passed through show he is brave. He still stands a chance of being a hero when at the end of the story he goes on to Ithaca to establish peace. He makes his way with Athena to the island dreaded by everybody in order to make peace. He cleans himself before the gods such that at the end of the story his relationship with the gods is still strong. He does not anger the god. In addition, Poseidon does not feel angry towards Odysseus and this aspect raises his rank as a hero in the Greek. Odysseus enjoys a moment of happiness finally when re-unites with his family. This was the main goal of Homer at the beginning of the story and the journey, which was long and very tiresome (Houston 34). Odyssey, despite the fact that he passes through many challenges due to the wrath of the ancient Greek gods, and that all his crew ends up being killed by Zeus, the god of Xian, he survives and makes his way to his native land with the help of Athena thus he portrays his brevity. The fact that raises many arguments among the people, the reason that people have some doubts considering Odysseus being the hero, is his encounter in the underworld with Hercules. Eventually, Hercules tells him that they are similar. This amazes the people especially when they know the fact that Hercules was a hero who was the greatest in the history of Greek and his story still exists until today (Houston 36). The fact that Hercules tells Odysseus that they are similar proves the argument that exists, about Odysseus being a hero in Greek. On the other hand, Homer depicts Odysseus as the greatest hero that ever existed in the ancient Greek world. According to Homer, the fact that Odysseus made his way to Hades and is able to make his way back to earth, though encountering many challenges, proves that Odysseus is a hero (Gould and Herington 121). In spite of the many arguments that disprove the fact that Odysseus is a hero, he has also done many things that prove his heroism. First, he lost his men and secondly, he has his ego up and he goes on to commit blasphemy when he said that even Poseidon would not give back the lost eye. In this way, he had made the gods angry with him, which was against the Greek. The Greek respected their gods entirely that whenever they went to the underworld, to Hades to worship their king or the god of the underworld, they knelt on their knees to the earth and hit the earth loudly so that the underworld god may hear them pray (Gould and Herington 89). This shows that the ancient Greek gods were v highly respected and the Greek feared to dishonor their gods because of the fear of punishment, which happened to Meropis, whereby Athena transformed him to an owl. This practice of Odysseus adds more to the idea of being the hero that is ideal in the ancient Greek. Odysseus qualifies to become a mortal hero, a hero who is human and it is very understandable that human beings have to mess up; human beings are not perfect and thus a mortal human being does not behave as the gods. In book III of Odyssey, Homer brings out clearly the way the Greeks respected their gods. They offered two sacrifices to Poseidon and Athena (Houston 68). The Greek followed all the procedures for offering sacrifices to their gods. The sacrifices also acted as a pivot to the plot of the poem, The Odyssey, whereby the punishment awaited for that person or the individual who does not give respect to the gods. The gods’ punished whoever disrespected them. This follows the punishment given to Odysseus by Poseidon because Odysseus blinded the son of Poseidon, Polyphemos. On the other hand, Athena reminds Telemakhos about the power of the gods which is impossible to demean the power of the gods in the culture of the Greek. The Greeks believe that everything comes because of fate, and the gods are responsible for the fate of the people as believed in the ancient Greek. The gods determined the fate of the people. Therefore, they decide to be on the safe side, they avoid the unnecessary punishments which result from the punishments given by the gods and thus determining their fate. Hospitality to the mortal beings, especially the strangers is a common characteristic among both the ancient Greek and the modern Greeks as well. Telemakho provides all the hospitality to the guests and this kind of hospitality follows throughout the book of the Odyssey (Finley 99). On the other hand, the family of Telemakho provides kindness to the guests who later treat him with disrespect; they sneer and jeer at him at the end of it all. According to the custom of the Greek culture, hospitality is upheld or the Xenia, with the god of Xenia being Zeus. The hospitality displayed by Menelaos supersedes the kind of hospitality provided by Telemakho and Nestor in book III. The differences between the hospitality offered by Telemakho and the kind of generosity provided by Menelaos show the way the suitors abuse the hospitality offered by Telemakho and later they plotted to kill him. Another situation that reminds Telemakho of his situation is the constant mentioning of the death for the murder of the father of Oreste. This situation compares to the situation that Telemakho is undergoing, whereby he treats the suitors with hospitality in the beginning of the poem and later, it follows that the learning of the courage of his father helped to transform him completely. The attribute of being witty of Odysseus is shown in the two books. Odysseus inherited these two attributes, wit and courage, from his father. Odysseus had not returned to his hometown, his native homeland even after ten years following the fall of Troy. During this period, everyone was very certain that Odysseus had died during the war and thus his wife received very many suitors and ate the stock of food that he left for his wife, Penelope. Odysseus decided to seek permission from his greatest immortal friend, the goddess of Athena, Zeus, to disguise himself and appear to the son of Odysseus Telemakhos, and asked him to go seek for the news concerning his father from Sparta and Pylos. The news spread and the Antinoos led the rest of the suitors in an attempt to ambush Odysseus on his return (Gould and Herington 38). However, Telemakhos tries to track the trails of his father from the stories he heard from his friends concerning the fighting and the war. On the other hand, Athena organizes for Odysseus’ release from the islands of Kalypso, the beautiful goddess who had taken Odysseus as a captive and lover for about eight years (Finley 56). After his release, he sets the journey to his native homeland. He used a makeshift raft to sail across the sea but Poseidon, the sea god, brings up a storm as revenge to Odysseus because of binding up his son, Kyklops Polyphemos. He brought up the storm to show his wrath oh Odysseus. Athena helps Odysseus through the storm and finally they reached Phaiakians, the palace of Athena and Nausikaa, the princess crushes on Odysseus. Odysseus decides to withhold his identity for so long until finally when Athena asks him to reveal his identity is when he decides to narrate his whole story. Odysseus narrates the whole events, which took place in his adventures; he told the people how his men lost many of their belongings when they the Kikones took care of them, during the war of Trojan. He continued narrating the way his people wanted to remain and stay in addled Lotos Eaters, the drug island. Many of his men got killed by Kyklops Polyphemos before even Odysseus gave a decree to his men to escape but also before Odysseus reveals his identity to Polyphemos and before he officially announced his war with Poseidon. The god of the wind provided a bag of wind to Odysseus to aid his return home but unfortunately, his men opened the bag with greed and immediately sent the ship to the man-eating Laistrygonians, the land of the giant (Gould and Herington 106). However, they did not success to escape. The men of Odysseus became pigs after the goddess Kirke tricked them in their next stop. Odysseus turned his men back from pigs to men with the help Hermes, the god. The men and the Odysseus stayed on the island for about one year, with Odysseus is his lover. After one year, the crew moved to the irresistible seductive nature and the temptations of the sea monsters, Skylla and the whirlpools of Kharybdis which navigate in the sea leisurely. As they navigate in the sea, they plumb the sea depths of Hades so that they receive a prophecy from the blind Teiresias, the great seer. The men of Odysseus disobeyed the orders given by Teiresias, of not touching the oxen during their rest in Helios. Therefore, Zeus decided to kill all the crew in a storm sparing only Odysseus. It follows that after this event is when Odysseus reached to the island of Kalyso. Odysseus actually passed through all and he proves himself a hero both in the spiritual and in the physical (Finley 108). Eventually, Odysseus receives gifts from Phaiakians, who treated him with hospitality after he finished narrating to them his life story during his adventure. They also give him a ferry to take him home. Athena then tries to disguise Odysseus into a beggar and he gives him instructions to go and search for Eumaios, his old swineherd. Athena helped Odysseus to re-unite with his son, Telemakhos who was able to escape the ambush of the suitors. Odysseus reveals his identity to only his old swineherd and his son and they device a method of overthrowing the suitors with the help of the swineherd and his son. He takes a keen investigation to his palace. He discovers that everything had changed (Gould and Herington 231). The suitors and the servants treated him without respect as he compares the loyalty of his wife, Penelope Penelope decides that she will marry the suitor who will be able to string the great bow of Odysseus and be able to shoot using an arrow through many heads of axe. Odysseus won in the competitions. He held the bow in his hand, he shoots and kills Antinoos, the suitor and revealed his identity. Odysseus re-unites with his wife happily and he led the massacre of the suitors by the help of Athena. He removed the idea that he is an imposter and therefore he longed to see the bed he built. On the other hand, outside the town, the father of Odysseus, Laertes is sick and Odysseus decides to visit him and the group of the suitors find them. The two groups started up a fight and Athena commands the two groups to stop fighting since Zeus had commanded peace among them (Finley 96). Odysseus knew how to speak to the dead, the ghosts. He cud use a language best understood by the dead. He appeased them by digging a pit of three cubits in different directions and poured into the pits honey, milk, water, sweet wine, white barley, and fresh blood from sheep slaughtered for sacrifices. The fact Odysseus knows how to communicate to the ghosts, he goes to an extent of persuading Achilles to join the war, and he ends up getting the trophy of the Trojan War and beats the son of Poseidon. Odysseus feels great and even greater than Poseidon does and thus Poseidon gets very angry with him and decides to cause a storm on the sea but Athena helps Odysseus through the sea. Therefore, the fact that Odysseus understands the language that he can use best to communicate with the underworld gods gives him an advantage thus he is able to get the support of the gods and succeeds to make his way out of the underworld (Gould, and Herington 63). Conclusion In conclusion, the Greek culture upholds their gods so much; they give their maximum respect the gods because they fear the wrath of their gods. Many people consider Odysseus as a great hero in the ancient Greek because he was able to overcome the entire wrath of the gods by the help of Athena and Zeus yet he is an immortal being. In the Greek mythology, many gods exist and they all serve different purposes. Homer mentions many Greek gods who include the Poseidon, Zeus, and Athena among many others. The Greek believes that the determination of the fate of an individual depends on the gods. The gods decide the fate of an individual and they can decide to change in case the individuals displease the gods and wrong them. The Greek Myth, the Odyssey owes the mortality. Therefore, Homer, in his poem, The Odyssey has clearly brought out the heroism and the gods of the Greek, showing the much respect that the Greeks offer to their gods and heroes (Lawall 93). On the other hand, Odysseus feels that he has great power and compares himself to the gods, which angers Poseidon. Some qualities that Odysseus exhibits qualify him as a hero. Work Cited Finley, M I. The World of Odysseus. London: Pimlico, 1999. Print. Gould, Thomas F, and Cecil J. Herington. Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P, 1977. Print. Guthrie, W K. C. The Greeks and Their Gods. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. Print. Houston, Jean. The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey As Pathway to Personal Transformation. Wheaton, Ill: Quest Books/Theosophical Pub. House, 2009. Print. Lawall, Sarah N. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Print. Read More