Last Name 1 First & Last Name
Dr. Kelly Martin
English 2332
23 July 2011 Notice this student’s thorough deconstruction of Odysseus’s voyage and how the
student explains the connection between each stop on the voyage and his identity.
Odysseus’s Identity – Journey to Hearth and Home
Homer’s poem, the Odyssey, recounts the tale of Odysseus’s long journey home. Having
left his young wife and son on the isle of Ithaca, Odysseus takes a group of men and joins the
Akhaians’ fight for Troy. After nine long years, with Troy finally vanquished, Odysseus gathers
his men and begins to make his way home. His journey back to Ithaca is fraught with peril and it
is ten more years before he realizes his desired homecoming. Along the way, Homer describes
Odysseus’s encounters with people both civilized and savage. Each of these encounters centers
around hospitality, or a lack of it. Odysseus’s long exile from his own hearth and home rob him
of his self-identity and cause him to doubt himself and those around him. His struggles with
identity are bound up in these encounters of hospitality, both offered and withheld, and it is not
until he returns to the normalcy of his own home that he fully reclaims his true identity.
In 1943 psychologist Abraham Maslow first introduced the concept of a hierarchy of
needs. Maslow identified the need for belonging as a social need. He suggested that while these
social needs go unmet, humans seek to fulfill them before moving onto higher needs (Bernstein
444-445). What Maslow would have called a “deficiency need” (Bernstein 444), this prolonged
lack of belonging prevents Odysseus from achieving his own potential and begins to unravel his
Last Name 2 sense of identity. While the Odyssey itself is not written in chronological order, it is best to look
at the unraveling of Odysseus’s identity as it happens.
After leaving Troy, Odysseus and his men board their ships and head for home. Landing
first on the coast of Kikonês, they then make their way to the land of the Lotus Eaters. Odysseus
sends three men to shore to get the lay of the land and report on its inhabitants. While the Lotus
Eaters “showed no will” (Homer IX. 95) to do them harm, the men ate the Lotos plant and soon
had no desire to return home. When recounting the story, Odysseus states, “They longed to stay
forever, browsing on that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland” (Homer IX. 95-101). He
drags them back to the ship “all three wailing” and “ties them down under their rowing benches”
(Homer IX. 102-103). He then tells the rest of his men to return to the ship without eating the
Lotus, warning them that if they do so they will “lose [their] hope of home” (Homer IX.105).
Here, Odysseus demonstrates the correlation between the men’s identities and their homes. To
Odysseus, forgetting yourself, your family and your homeland is to lose your hope of belonging.
After leaving the land of the Lotus Eaters, Odysseus and his men make their way to the
shores of the Kyklopês. Odysseus describes them as “giants, louts, without a law to bless them”
(Homer IX.110). They have no “muster and no meeting, no consultation or old tribal ways, but
each one dwells in his own mountain cave dealing out rough justice to wife and child, indifferent
to what the others do” (Homer IX. 117-123). Clearly for the Kyklopês there is no collective
sense of belonging. While Odysseus is unsure of his reception on the island, he tells his men to
hang back at their ships. He takes a small company of men and goes to “find out what the
mainland natives are” (Homer IX.182). He wonders aloud if they will be “wild savages, and
lawless or hospitable and god-fearing men” (Homer IX. 183-184).
Last Name 3 Odysseus gets his answer when he and his men stumble upon the Kyklops cave inhabited
by Polyphêmos. He asks them who they are and where they are from. Odysseus’s answer
reveals his underlying understanding of identity. He says “We are from Troy, Akhaians, blown
off course by shifting gales on the Great South Sea; homeward bound” (Homer IX. 271-273). To
Odysseus, their identity is bound up in where they are from and where they are going. He and his
men “belong” in a sense to and in Ithaca. Odysseus then asks the Kyklops for his hospitality,
admitting they are “beholden for [his] help, and any gifts [he] gives –as custom is to honor
strangers” (Homer IX. 278-289). He goes on to warn Polyphêmos to “have a care for the gods’
courtesy;” because as Greek custom would have it “Zeus will avenge the unoffending guest”
(Homer IX. 281-283) However, Polyphêmos does not fear the gods, and withholds hospitality
from Odysseus and his men. According to Margo Kitts, the Kyklops are “antisocial cannibals
and pastoral milk drinkers, savage relics of a world untamed by Zeus and Xenios” (146). This
lack of civilization is epitomized by the Kyklopês’ response to the plenty around them. Odysseus
describes their behavior by saying “in ignorance they leave the fruitage of the earth in mystery to
the immortal gods, they neither plow nor sow by hand nor till the ground, though grain—wild
wheat and barley—grows untended, and wine-grapes, in clusters, ripen in heaven’s rain” (Homer
IX.111-116). So, it is not surprising that Polyphêmos does not offer Odysseus and his men the
hospitality they crave. Instead, the Kyklops eats several of the men and Odysseus is left
wondering how to escape Polyphêmos’s cave.
After drinking some strong wine brought along by Odysseus and his men, Polyphêmos
asks Odysseus his name. Odysseus tells him his name is “nobody”, going so far as to say his
“mother, father and friends call me nobody” (Homer IX. 382-383). While this ruse is clearly part
of his escape plan, Odysseus unconsciously reveals his disintegrating identity. In his article
Last Name 4 “Fabrications of Self: Identity Formation in the Odyssey”, Gijs van Oenen explains the deeper
implications of this encounter. When explaining Odysseus’s identification of himself as
“nobody”, Oenen says “Odysseus here provides a rather apt description of himself, as someone
without a determinate or tangible identity.” He goes on to say, “It is unclear whether Odysseus
himself here understands the darker implication of his own self-description—probably not,
considering his compulsion to hurl his “true identity on the mutilated cyclops from the safety of
his ship” (232). Although Odysseus’s men beg him to “let him alone!” he “would not heed them”
and yelled, “Kyklops, if ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell
him Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye; Laërtês’ son, whose home’s on Ithaka” (Homer IX.
515-527). It is as if by identifying himself in this way to the Kyklops, Odysseus is actually
reminding himself of who he is and where he belongs. Having been away from home for years,
attempting to make his way back by “taking routes and ways uncommon” (Homer IX. 274), the
years of deprivation of hospitality and normalcy at his own hearth and home are taking their toll.
Ironically, Odysseus’s self-identification causes Polyphêmos to pray to his father Poseidon,
ensuring that it will be years before Odysseus sees his homeland.
Next, Odysseus and his men sail on, finally landing on Circe’s island. Here, Odysseus
succumbs to the temptation of Circe’s hospitality. Bernard Knox describes this encounter in his
Introduction to the Odyssey. He says, “Circe, after she has renounced her plan to change him
and his crew into swine, becomes a perfect hostess, entertaining Odysseus in her bed and his
crew at the banquet table. Odysseus, if not bewitched, is certainly charmed, for at the end of a
whole year of dalliance he has to be reminded by his crew of his duty” (33). Circe offers
Odysseus a pseudo normalcy of hearth and home which is tempting enough to make him forget
his longing for home. Much like his men’s encounter with the Lotus Eaters, Odysseus must be
Last Name 5 reminded to “shake off this trance, and think of home—if home indeed awaits us, if we shall ever
see your own well-timbered hall on Ithaka” (Homer X.507-510). Odysseus asks Circe for her
help in returning home and, after sending him on a journey to the dead, she does so. After
leaving Circe’s, his men and ships are all lost at sea, and Odysseus washes up on Kalypso’s
shore.
Since the Odyssey itself is written out of order, the first time we actually see Odysseus he
is stranded on Kalypso’s island. He has been there for seven long years and his men, having
perished in the journey, are gone. Odysseus himself has lost his way, both physically and
emotionally. When Hermês visits Kalypso to inform her that she must let Odysseus go, he sees
“nothing of the great Odysseus, who sat apart as a thousand times before, and wracked his own
heart groaning, with eyes wet scanning the bare horizon of the sea” (Homer V. 86-90). While
fighting with the Akhaians at Troy, surrounded by his men, Odysseus was well-respected and
known for his achievements in battle. So although separated from his own hearth and home,
Odysseus belonged. His men gone, the warring over, years of wandering the seas behind him,
Odysseus has finally lost this sense of belonging.
Kalypso is more than willing to provide hearth and home for Odysseus. When Heremês
arrives he finds “her hearthstone [with] a great fire blazing”, Kalypso herself “singing high and
low in her sweet voice, before her loom a-weaving” (Homer V. 64-67). She tells Hermês that
after Odysseus’s ship was destroyed and the currents brought him to her shores, she “fed him,
loved him, [and] sang that he should not die or grow old, ever, in all the days to come” (Homer
V. 140-143). However, unlike with Circe, Odysseus holds himself back from this offer of
hospitality and normalcy, refusing to participate. Instead, when Kalypso searches for him to tell
him she is ready to let him go, she finds him sitting “in his stone seat to seaward –tear on tear
Last Name 6 brimming his eyes. The sweet days of his life time were running out in anguish over his exile, for
long ago the nymph had ceased to please” (Homer V. 156-161). So although Kalypso is willing
to provide Odysseus with a hearth and home, the offer is unsatisfying and his needs continue to
go unmet. His mind and heart have turned toward Ithaca and he longs for the normalcy and
hospitality of his beloved home and family.
After leaving Kalypso, Odysseus finally makes his way to the land of the Phaiákians.
Here he experiences hearth and home the way he remembers it. In fact, comparing Homer’s later
descriptions of Odysseus’s hall in Ithaca, Odysseus might have landed on the isle of Ithaca itself.
The king gives him his son’s own seat and “a serving maid poured water for his hands from a
gold pitcher…spread a polished table at his side; the mistress of provisions came with bread and
other victuals, generous with her store” (Homer VII. 185-190). The queen sends her maids to
make him “a kingly bed, with purple rugs piled up, and sheets outspread, and fleecy coverlets”
(Homer VII. 359-361). For the first time in a very long time, Odysseus lies down and sleeps in
much the same manner he must have on Ithaca.
These initial encounters with the Phaiákians seem to have a profound impact on
Odysseus. When asked to compete in a track and field meet that is a part of the festival held in
his honor, he at first declines. However, when challenged he responds by beating all the young
competitors in a discus throw. Then, he tells them he’ll compete with anyone but his host at any
competition except sprinting. He tells them all about his prowess in racing, wrestling, boxing
and throwing the spear. He in fact he says, “Of men who now eat read upon the earth I hold
myself the best hand with a bow” (Homer VIII. 230-231). With his return to something close to
the normalcy of home on Ithaca, Odysseus seems to be reclaiming his lost identity.
Last Name 7 While the Phaiákians treat him as a respected guest, the king goes so far as to offer him
marriage to his daughter and land on the island itself. Like with Circe and Kalypso, Odysseus is
tempted to cast aside his identity as king of Ithaca, and become someone else entirely. However,
the hospitality of the Phaiákians seems to remind him of who he is and where he truly belongs.
When the kings first asks him to identify himself he does so by saying, “Now by the same rule,
friend, you must not be secretive any longer! Come in fairness, tell me the name you bore in that
far country; how were you know to family, and neighbors? Tell me your native land, your coast
and city—sailing directions for the ships” (Homer VIII. 572-578). According to the article, The
Odyssey: Themes, published in the Literary Cavalcade, “For the Greeks, identity was bound up
with property, so while Odysseus is homeless, he is also nameless” (14). Although the king has
spent time with Odysseus already, knowing him well enough to offer his daughter in marriage,
he wishes to know Odysseus’s identity. This identity is bound up first in his name, as evidenced
by the king’s question about how Odysseus is known to family and neighbors. The second is
bound up in where he is from, or where he belongs. In asking these questions the king reveals the
common ancient Greek understanding of a person’s identity. Closer to home than he’s been in
many years, with renewed hope for finally landing on Ithaca’s shores, Odysseus begins to
reclaim his identity as Ithaca’s king.
When asked to identify himself to the king, Odysseus answers by saying, “I am Laertes’
son, Odysseus. Men hold me formidable for guile in peace and war; this fame has gone abroad to
the sky’s rim” (Homer IX. 18-21). As Knox says in his introduction to the poem, “He speaks of
his fame in an utterly objective manner, as if it were something apart from himself; his words are
not a boast but a statement of the reputation, the qualities and achievements to which he must be
Last Name 8 true” (32). It is as if, having spent time in such a civilized and recognizable environment, closer
than ever to home, Odysseus begins to refashion himself into the warrior king he once was.
Laden down with more treasure than he was carrying when he originally left Troy,
Odysseus finally finds himself on a ship bound for Ithaca. However, having been warned on his
trip to the underworld by Agamemnon’s ghost, Odysseus is suspicious of those in his own
household and returns home, not as a triumphant king, but instead as a lowly beggar. He again
subverts his own identity, using guile and deception to disguise himself until he decides who can
be trusted. The goddess Athena helps him hide his treasure in a cave and causes his physical
appearance to change. She tells him, “Now, for a while, I shall transform you; not a soul will
know you, the clear skin of your arms and legs shriveled, your chestnut hair all gone, your body
dressed in sacking that a man would gag to see…” (Homer XIII. 464-467). She then tells
Odysseus not to return directly home, but to visit the swineherd first, while she goes to see to the
return of his son Telemakhos. Athena tells him of the suitors that fill his home, using his stores
of wine and food, plotting to marry his wife and kill his son.
Doing as Athena says, Odysseus makes his way to the forest where the swineherd lives
and tends the swine. Although told of the swineherd’s faithfulness by Athena and a witness to it
himself, Odysseus nevertheless continues to withhold his identity. Given gentle hospitality
including a couch made of the swineherd’s own bed coverings and what food there was to share,
Odysseus is not yet ready to reveal himself to those around him. He makes up a false identity
complete with a family history and explanation of how he came to be on Ithaca. Although
Odysseus is finally home, until he deals with the suitors and ascertains whether or not his wife
can be trusted, he will not reclaim his identity as king of Ithaca.
Last Name 9 When Telemakhos returns, Odysseus finally reveals himself to his son at Athena’s
urging. With this revelation, a series of recognitions begin, and Odysseus finally begins to step
back into his true identity. Returning with the swineherd to his own hall, the first one to
recognize Odysseus is ironically his dog, Argos. Hearing Odysseus’s voice, “he did his best to
wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears, having no strength to move nearer his master”
(Homer XVII. 343-345). Next, Odysseus is recognized by his old nurse. While bathing him, she
recognizes the scar on his thigh. She says, “Oh, yes! You are Odysseus! Ah, dear child! I could
not see you until now—not till I knew my master’s very body with my hands!” (Homer XIX.
505-508). Still Odysseus tells her to keep it quiet and neither reveals his identity to his wife
Penelope.
While Odysseus and Telemakhos make plans to kill the suitors, Penelope begins to make
plans of her own. Feeling forced into a marriage she does not want, she sets a task before the
suitors to see which can complete a task Odysseus himself was well known for. Penelope says:
My lords, hear me: suitors indeed, you commandeered this house to feast and drink in,
day and night, my husband being long gone, long out of mind. You found no justification
for yourselves—none except your lust to marry me. Stand up then: we now declare a
contest for that prize. Here is my lord Odysseus’s hunting bow. Bend and string it if you
can. Who sends an arrow through iron axe-helve sockets, twelve in line? I join my life
with his, and leave this place, my home, my rich and beautiful bridal house, forever to be
remembered, though I dream it only” (Homer XXI. 68-78)
Last Name 10 None of the suitors can complete the task and Penelope returns to her rooms. Odysseus,
however, still dressed as a beggar, strings the bow, shoots through the sockets and begins to take
his revenge on the suitors, once and for all. He reveals himself by saying:
You yellow dogs, you thought I’d never make it home from the land of Troy. You took
my house to plunder, twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared bid for my wife
while I was still alive. Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven,
contempt for what men say of you hereafter. Your last hour has come. You die in blood.
(Homer XXII. 34-40)
Odysseus finally reveals himself as the true king of Ithaca and slaughters the suitors and all those
disloyal in his household. After the bodies are removed and Odysseus purifies the hall, the
servants come forward, “crowding to embrace Odysseus, taking his hands to kiss, his head and
shoulders, while he stood there, nodding to every one, and overcome by longing and by tears”
(Homer XXIII. 516-521). Surrounded by his son and loyal servants, Odysseus finally begins to
feel the sense of belonging he has long been missing. Still there is one person who does not yet
know of Odysseus’s return. Until he is fully reunited with Penelope, Odysseus will not reclaim
his true identity.
The nurse attempts to tell Penelope the good news, but she refuses to believe. When she
sees him she sits “deathly still in wonderment—for sometimes as she gazed she found him—yes
clearly—like her husband, but sometimes blood and rags were all she saw” (Homer XXIII. 9295). So, she holds herself apart until Odysseus passes one final test. Penelope instructs the maid
to make up a bed for him telling her to “Place it outside the bedchamber my lord built with his
own hands” (Homer XXIII. 181-182). Having built the room itself around the bed, Odysseus
Last Name 11 replies in anger, “Who dared to move my bed? No builder had the skill for that—unless a god
came down to turn the trick. No mortal in his best days could budge it with a crowbar. There is
our pact and pledge, our secret sign, built into that bed—my handiwork and no one else’s!”
Finally, Penelope believes and rushes to embrace Odysseus. They soon retire to bed and “the
royal pair mingled in love again and afterward lay reveling in stories” (Homer XXIII. 304-305).
This return to marital normalcy fully restores Odysseus’s sense of belonging and allows him to
experience his true identity once again.
In the Odyssey, we see Odysseus experience a crisis of identity. Through a series of
encounters with characters both hospitable and not, Odysseus goes from a triumphant warrior to
a self-described “nobody”. After years of fighting, then wandering the seas in a vain attempt to
return home, Odysseus loses his sense of belonging and must be reminded of who he is. The
hospitality of strangers and his eventual return home restore him to his true identity. When he
deals with the traitors in his hall and experiences the normalcy and hospitality of his wife, son,
and loyal friends, Odysseus is finally able to be the warrior king once more.
Last Name 12 Works Cited
Bernstein, Douglas A. Essentials of Psychology. Fifth ed. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2009. 44445. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Sarah Lawall. Vol. A 2nd
ed. New York: WW Norton, 2002. F vols. Print. Page numbers here.
Kitts, Margo. "Two Expressions for Human Mortality in the Epics of Homer." History of
Religions 34.2 (n.d.): 132. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 21 July 2011.
Knox, Bernard. Introduction. The Odyssey. By Homer. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. 28-42.
Print.
"THE ODYSSEY: THEMES." Literary Cavalcade 54.2 (2001): 14. Literary Reference Center.
EBSCO. Web. 21 July 2011.
van Oenen, Gijs. "Fabrications of Self: Identity Formation in the Odyssey." Cultural Values 5.2
(2001): Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 July 2011.