The Story
Odysseus has not returned to his home in Ithaca, 10 years after the end of the Trojan war. His wife is surrounded by many suitors who want her hand. His son, Telemachus, is sick and tired of the suitors and sends them away before going to look for his father. The suitors plot to kill Telemachus on his return.
Odysseus is being held on a small island by the nymph Calypso. Athena convinces Calypso to let him go. But he ends up in another storm, as Poseidon is still angry with him. He eventually washes up on Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians. They almost don't believe he is the Odysseus that fought in Troy but they promise him a ship home, if he tells them his story.
Odysseus tells of leaving Troy, of visiting the land of the lotus eaters and of how he had to drag his men away from there. He tells the stories of:
- Meeting a cyclops, being captured by him and how he used cunning to blind the cyclops and escape
- Circe's turning his men into pigs and how he got her to release them
- Killing the sun gods cattle and Zeus causing a storm that killed all his men
- How he washed up on the shore of Calypso's island.
Odysseus returns to Ithaca and is reunited with his son, who had returned when Athena sent him home. His wife puts a test to The Suitors to string Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through 12 axe heads, which none of The Suitors can do. A disguised Odysseus does it with ease. Odysseus and his son then slay The Suitors. He then reveals himself to his wife and they travel to his fathers estate. The families of The Suitors come for vengeance, for the slaughter at the palace, but are turned away by Athena, disguised as Mentor.
Reflections
The story of the Odyssey is not told in chronological order. It instead starts in the middle of the story, with Odysseus trapped on Calypso's island. And later, the back story is finally filled in, as Odysseus tells his story to the king at Scheria. This creates the odd situation, where you know that Poseidon is angry with him for blinding a cyclops, but you have no idea why this happened.
Odysseus never escapes a situation by using his brawn, but rather always through cunning, or in one case the gods intervention. Although he is known for his cunning, it interests me that he never seems to run out of tricks or when he does, a god tells him what to do to prevail.
Telemachus' coming of age story is scattered throughout the story of Odysseus. He starts the story as a boy who is angry with The Suitors but does not have the agency to do anything about it, and ends helping his father slay those very suitors. In between, he has traveled around the Greek world on his own mini-quest, to find out what has become of his father.
Comparisons
The Odyssey is profoundly easier to read than the Iliad, as it has only a handful of named characters to keep track of, compared to the preponderance in the Iliad. That being said, there seems to be less character development in Odysseus than Achilles.
The Odyssey approaches its story in a scattered way, filling in its own backstory with Odysseus telling the story to others. By contrast the Iliad is very focused and very chronological, following through the consequences of the opening actions.
The two texts have such a different feel to them that I wonder if they were truly written by the same author. If they were they were written at very different times.
Have you read the The Odyssey? If so what did you think?
Does this inspire you to read the The Odyssey? If so tell me what you think when your done!
Buy a copy of The Odyssey
Read my post on The Iliad
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