The Role Of Death In Homer's Odyssey

Your culture influences your morals and ideas, shaping you from the youngest age, and yet one incident can change your perspective. A person’s view of life changes throughout and by their experiences; traumatic, dramatic, or otherwise. Death is a averse subject at best in any culture, however, it is one that needs approaching more often. Even as it needs to be more talked about, it also needs to be said that perceptions of it change from culture to culture and person to person as well. It all depends on ideas and morals. And perspective certainly plays a role in it as well. Some choose to defy their culture 's ideas and morals due to trials throughout their life, as it no longer fits with their current understanding of the world. Odysseus, from the epic The Odyssey by Homer, is no different. His view of death is significantly different than the culture than he was raised in, as the result of his travels, his age, and how well he knows the person or his opinion of him all affect his thoughts on dying and mourning.

Odysseus approaches death calmly throughout The Odyssey, not once worrying about himself …show more content…
Approaching death is not an easy subject, and yet he does it casually, albeit changed from his original take on the gruesome topic. He is not stoic and unemotional, but rather unaffected by the deaths of his men, his family, and the chance that he may die as well. No visible emotions from him occur during the vast majority of the epic, and in the last 5-6 books, he expresses the majority of his emotion, from bloodlust to an unassuming state, to sadness and pity. Not once does it mention him mourning the death of one of his men, the loss of Penelope to a new suitor, or missing his son’s childhood years. The actions are atypical to American culture, as well as to Archaic Greek culture as it is understood