A Character Analysis Of Nostos In Homer's The Odyssey

The landing gear of the Chinook helicopter hit the ground, the side doors opened. His dusty, tan boots touched the warm concrete. His eyes scanned the horizon, as training had taught him, his sidearm at his hip and a passport in his hand, but there was no one there. As the man’s feet moved closer to the airport, which was really just a few government-type buildings, he began to realize something. While his boots and body were rooted firmly in the ground beneath him, his head, heart, and mind were elsewhere. In Homer’s novel, The Odyssey, Odysseus must have felt similar during his Nostos, journey home, to Ithaca where he was first welcomed as a beggar. However, Nostos is different from Odysseus’ time, can have profound effects, and can be psychologically disturbing and physically very different.

Nostos in Odysseus’ time was very fundamental, at least in stories and from what we know of the time period, as many of the traits and adjectives that apply to today’s returnees cannot are not applicable to Odysseus’ Nostos. For instance, during Odysseus’ time the conflicts involving returnees were fought nearby with basic, crude weapons, utilizing little technology. This would then create a circumstance where someone, often a combatant, would commonly return in a ship to a homeland. There he would be welcomed as a hero by those who hadn’t forgotten him and still stood for the original …show more content…
It often has life-changing effects, and in the case of Odysseus and Eric Alva, it spurs action. One could say this is inapplicable to a typical person’s day, but this is false. “Nostos” is really more of a psychological state than a physical one. Thus it is applicable to everybody’s life at one point or another. The ability to look at and analyze another person’s nostos can greatly affect your nostsos, as it itself can and will have profound effects psychologically . It also morphs through time, and is quite different from what the returnee