Greek Mythology
The Adventures of Odysseus
The Odyssey
Structure
I. Ithaca without Odysseus
II. Odysseus’s adventures
(mostly in flashback)
III. Reunion at Ithaca
Books 1-4: the maturity of Telemachus
Books 5 -12: Odysseus’s adventures
Books 13-24: Odysseus back at Ithaca
The Order of Narrative
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The tenth year after Troy fell
Odysseus on the island of Calypso
Odysseus about to sail back with Zeus’s help
Odysseus arriving at Scherie, home to the
Phaeacians
• Odysseus relating his adventures to his host
• Odysseus’s way home with Phaeacian’s help
Books of The Odyssey: 1
• Books 1-4: Zeus’s decision & the scene of
Ithaca
• Book 5: Calypso
• Book 6: Nausicaa
• Books 7-8: Scherie
• Book 9: Polyphemus
• Book 10: Aeolus
• Book 11: the underworld
Books of The Odyssey: 2
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Book 12: the cattle of the Sun god
Book 13: arrival at Ithaca
Book 14: the Swineherd
Book 15: Telemachus back home
Book 16: Father & Son
Book 17: Stranger at the gate
Book 18: Beggar King
Book 19: Penelope
Books of The Odyssey: 3
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Book 20: portents gather
Book 21: Odysseus strings his bow
Book 22: slaughter
Book 23: rooted bed
Book 24: peace & order restored
A Question to Ponder Over
• Why Homer spent so many books on the
stuff other than adventures?
A Possible Answer
• Adventures are not the focus of The
Odyssey.
A Further Question to Ponder Over
• If the adventures are not the focus, what is
the major concern of Homer in this epic?
After reading
• What were the concerns of Homer, if
adventures themselves were not his focus?
• If you were Odysseus, what is the biggest
temptation? Why?
Adventures as temptations to test
Odysseus’s mental & physical
endurance
• Lotus flower: forgetfulness of home and
family
• Circe: life of ease and self-indulgence
• Phaeacia: the love of a young princess
• Sirens: to live in the memory of the
glorious past
• Calypso: greatest temptation immortality
What are the essences of life?
Possible answers:
• Basic needs
• Sense of security
• Sense of belonging
• Dignity
• Self-fulfillment
Odysseus’s dedication to life
• The value Homer stresses in The Odyssey
as a contrast/supplement to The Iliad
• Glory in battlefield is probably not the only
value in life
• In refusing Kalypso, Odysseus chooses
the human condition, with all its struggle,
its disappoints, and its inevitable end.
Odysseus’s dedication to life
• Against the dark background of Achilles’s
regret for life, Odysseus’s dedication to
life—his acceptance of limitations and his
ability to seize its possibilities—shines out.
• (the teacher’s note) Odysseus’s heroic
qualities in seizing the possibilities of life
are also set off by the vulgarity of his crew.
Other important notes
• The celebration of return to ordinary life as
a worthy prize after excitement, toil, and
danger
• The setting right of social disorder
• Telemachus as a foil/potential rival to
Odysseus’s mature wisdom
The Mysterious Figure of
Penelope
• Her dilemma in marriage: the weaving as
a metaphor
• The ambivalence in her trick of web
• Her setting up the contest of the bow
• The trick of the marriage bed
• What motivates her to do so?
Homer’s affirmation of the
Greek political life
• Through the disorder created by the
suitors during the absence of the ruler,
Homer affirms Odysseus’s restoration
of hierarchical and patriarchal order in
house and polity.
Homer’s affirmation of the
Greek political life
• Self-fashioning by reference to the foreign:
---the Cyclops
---Aeolous
---the Laestrygonians
---Calypso
---Circe
---the Phaeacians
The great difficulty in resolving the
issue of violence
• The Odyssey is no more successful than
The Iliad in resolving the problem of
violence.
• How can human aggression be controlled,
if not eliminated?
• Can violence within the community be
channeled into safe, perhaps socially
creative, forms?
Homer’s self-fashioning of the Greek
civilization by reference to the foreign
• See Norton, p. 104