A Story of the Gods
While the Odyssey was centered around Odysseus, it seems the gods play an even bigger role than he does. We follow Odysseus all around Greece, encountering some unbelievable monsters and near death experience, but every single thing that happened was caused by god or to fulfill a god’s motive. So, is the Odyssey a story of Odysseus or a story of the gods?
If you were to look past all the trivial adventures of Odysseus, you would notice that nearly the entire epic is a sibling rivalry between Poseidon and Zeus. What we read about is the repercussions on the mortal world, and the obvious indifference of the gods. The entire story is because of Poseidon’s hurt pride; he refused to admit to the Trojan defeat and brush off the …show more content…
That stunt he pulled with Circe in Book 10 was pretty impressive, but none of it was really him. It was one of those moments when no one knew what to do and they were all waiting for someone to save the day, but it wasn’t Odysseus who saved the day. Odysseus was prepared to walk right into Circe’s palace without a plan, but luckily the real hero showed up just on time. Hermes is back to fix everything once again! In detail, so Odysseus doesn’t mess anything up, Hermes tells him exactly what to do and exactly how to do it (10.302-386), and that’s the only reason things end up going fairly well. And let’s not forget the time Hermes flew all the way to Ogygia from Mount Olympus to convince Calypso to free Odysseus (5.85-160); Hermes sure does a lot for these …show more content…
On every page you can find the gods at work, and often times they really do seem to care for the mortals. Despite the god and goddesses attitude towards the mortals at times, we can argue that they are really the ones doing good for them. The gods are the ones who are there to support the mortals and give them advice, making them the sort of true heros of this story, not some human with a tragic backstory, like Odysseus. The only reason Odysseus is made as the “hero” of this story is because of the work the gods had done for him, despite their selfish ways at times. While the purpose of the gods seems unclear, they always seem to get things done in the end, no matter how much of a mess they had made in the
While the Odyssey was centered around Odysseus, it seems the gods play an even bigger role than he does. We follow Odysseus all around Greece, encountering some unbelievable monsters and near death experience, but every single thing that happened was caused by god or to fulfill a god’s motive. So, is the Odyssey a story of Odysseus or a story of the gods?
If you were to look past all the trivial adventures of Odysseus, you would notice that nearly the entire epic is a sibling rivalry between Poseidon and Zeus. What we read about is the repercussions on the mortal world, and the obvious indifference of the gods. The entire story is because of Poseidon’s hurt pride; he refused to admit to the Trojan defeat and brush off the …show more content…
That stunt he pulled with Circe in Book 10 was pretty impressive, but none of it was really him. It was one of those moments when no one knew what to do and they were all waiting for someone to save the day, but it wasn’t Odysseus who saved the day. Odysseus was prepared to walk right into Circe’s palace without a plan, but luckily the real hero showed up just on time. Hermes is back to fix everything once again! In detail, so Odysseus doesn’t mess anything up, Hermes tells him exactly what to do and exactly how to do it (10.302-386), and that’s the only reason things end up going fairly well. And let’s not forget the time Hermes flew all the way to Ogygia from Mount Olympus to convince Calypso to free Odysseus (5.85-160); Hermes sure does a lot for these …show more content…
On every page you can find the gods at work, and often times they really do seem to care for the mortals. Despite the god and goddesses attitude towards the mortals at times, we can argue that they are really the ones doing good for them. The gods are the ones who are there to support the mortals and give them advice, making them the sort of true heros of this story, not some human with a tragic backstory, like Odysseus. The only reason Odysseus is made as the “hero” of this story is because of the work the gods had done for him, despite their selfish ways at times. While the purpose of the gods seems unclear, they always seem to get things done in the end, no matter how much of a mess they had made in the