Odysseus Compare And Contrast

Odysseus is arguably one of the most famous ancient Greek literary characters that has ever existed. This is largely thanks to works like The Odyssey and Philoctetes and the events that occur in the epic and play. Given that in the ancient Greek culture, men married at around 30 years of age, and Odysseus was married to Penelope with a son just before he went to Troy and was thus gone for 20 years, the audience can assume that in The Odyssey, Odysseus is approximately between the ages of 48 to 53 years old. Thus, in a story like Philoctetes, the presentation of Odysseus is different as he is 10 years younger than the Odysseus presented in The Odyssey. Odysseus is a naïve, younger version of himself in the Philoctetes, as Homer’s Odysseus would not have been so trusting but he still is similar as he has his persuasive tongue in both the tragedy and epic. Homer’s Odysseus, at the end of his voyage, is a wise man unlike Sophocles’ Odysseus who is naïve. The audience knows Odysseus is smart because his patron god is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and strategy and through the various schemes he enacts to achieve his …show more content…
The audience sees Odysseus’ naiveté when he implicitly trusts Neoptolemus to retrieve Heracles’ bow and not betray him and the Greek army. However, the audience also witnesses Odysseus’ growth and wisdom in The Odyssey when he finally arrives home and does not immediately trust Athena or Eumaeus because they could betray him to the suitors. Throughout both the tragedy and epic though, Odysseus is consistently shown to have a clever tongue that can convince others to go against their own personal desires for the greater good. While Sophocles’ introduces a new and young Odysseus the defining characteristic of Odysseus’ personality is still