Eurycleia In The Odyssey

I believe this passage means is that people will see what they want to see, mostly if they have a deep enough connection with the person. Eurycleia was a nurse to Odysseus and seeing him ‘standing in the sea of dead bodies’ she was proud of him. She tells Penelope that seeing him like that 'it would of warmed your heart' showing us that those who truly love Odysseus would not be horrified by his actions. This connection is important because we see it throughout the book. That if you care and love for that person enough, you will do anything for them. We see it with Penelope and her love for Odysseus and the misguidance of the suitors and the relationship between Odysseus and his son even though Odysseus left early on.
What is being suggested about what Eurycleia is seeing is that one is willing to turn a blind eye at one is doing. Eurycleia was in awe of what Odysseus had done. She saw him as worthy and strong to a point that she compared him to lion who had just finished feasting, 'spattered with blood and filth like a lion'. Still this suggested that sometimes people saw other people as god's based on the stories and actions that they saw, and many people saw Odysseus as godlike because of his battles and his …show more content…
It is shown when Athena turns Odysseus from looking like a drowned cat to looking like he was a god. Nausicaa even tells her serving girls that ‘he’s like one of the gods who live in the sky’. Like Eurycleia, these girls only saw what was shown to them. They both saw a glimpse of a man, the godlike aspect but never anything else about him. He could have actually been a God to come and punish and they wouldn’t have know. We see the same kind of misguidance later when one of the suitors tells Antinous ‘hitting a poor beggar. You’ve done for if he turns out to be a good’ because underneath everything people only see what they want to see, either it could be a good or it is a