Role Of Gods In The Odyssey

The Odyssey written by Homer highlights the character development of Odysseus, the epic hero, in his journey of self-discovery. Odysseus is accredited with many strong traits including his nobility, smarts, and bravery. Having one tragic flaw, being his arrogance, was put to the test throughout his heroic journey. Homer stripped the protagonist of his arrogance as the story goes on, by giving him many challenges, giving dire consequences for his mistakes, and allowing him to continue to overcome obstacles. The main purpose of Odysseus’ journey was to reach his home as a humbled man. The hero’s journey can be used as a way to look at life’s morals. The reader is able to see the protagonist continue to make mistakes, because of his arrogance and continue to be punished by the gods. Once he overcame this, he is greatly awarded with the security of his home. This essay will analyze the arrogance of Odysseus along with his extraordinary traits, the molding of his identity, and his new found lesson of humility.

Gods played a great role back in ancient civilizations and still do so to a certain extent, just not as intensely. Today, we have many different gods and religions, but for the most part, they are not nearly as serious as they were back in the days of Odysseus. Gods were believed by all to run the whole show and could end lives if they chose. Whatever humans did had to reflect on what the Gods would think of it since it was they who controlled the thin line between life and death of every living soul. The relationships between men and Gods are shown as a serious topic in the Odyssey for several reasons and are also shown through several examples. Athena is shown to be the most kind and helpful Goddess for Odysseus and this is shown by her doing all in her power to help him get back home to his family as

Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and the main character in homer’s The Odyssey, was gone for twenty years before finally returning to his family and his homeland. He struggled through many hardships and lost many loyal companions. The King of Ithaca would not have made it home without the assistance of the Greek gods. Despite all of the help and advice that Odysseus receives from the gods, he is a very brave man because his courage and daring in the cave of the Cyclops, his inability to give up and abandon his men on Circe’s island, and his flawless following of the gods instructions are acts of bravery that is uncommon in most men.

As the suitors, Odysseus and anyone who has messed with the gods could tell you, stay on the god’s good side. Odysseus’ journey home in The Odyssey was a great example of how the gods can change everything in a moment.The gods intervening was a big part in the ups and downs of Odysseus’ journey home. The painting Fisherman by the Sea by J.W.M. Turner shows two ships in the ocean fighting strong waves, looking at a light far away. The painting is showing a hopeless ship fighting waves and trying to get home to the light. It connects to the main point because of the long journey caused by the gods.Also, Geoffrey Philp, in his poem “The Cattle of the Sun God” shows a similar point of the power and what can happen if you do not listen to the gods. In Philip’s writing, the poem shows how awful the punishments the gods give can be. “The cattle of The Sun god” is about Odysseus’ crew making a dumb decision and the gods acting as their own system of justice. In the poem, Philip uses the consequences of the mortals mistake to demonstrate the power of the gods.

When his two nearest companions pulled away his clothes and looked at his neck, they had said him a solemn farewell in expectation of his death. We 'll meet again in a better world, they said. He was classed among the dying and put aside on a cot to do so. But he failed at it. After two days, space being short, they sent him on to a regular hospital in his own state. All through the mess of the field hospital and the long grim train ride south in a boxcar filled with wounded, he had agreed with his friends and the doctors. He thought he would die. About all he could remember of the trip was the heat and the odors of blood and of shit, for many of the wounded had the flux. (Frazier, 4)

The gods play an important part in Odysseus’ journey home, bringing him closer and farther from his homeland. They constantly intervene in the lives of the many characters in The Odyssey. Though Odysseus is a hero, the gods control his life. It is as if he were the main character in a video game and the gods are fighting over who controls his life. Personal responsibility is overshadowed by the gods’ eagerness to grab the controller.

The victory of Odysseus and his son Telemakhos over the suitors is credited to Odysseus’s cleverness and cunning nature. Yet Odysseus would not have made it home, and Telemakhos wouldn’t have become confident, more mature, and better at speaking his mind if it wasn’t for the intervention of a higher power. The gods and goddess in The Odyssey, an epic poem by Homer, provided disguise, strength, and advice. Without their hand in the matter Odysseus would have not made it home and Telemakhos would not have matured or learned of his father and Greek customs. Odysseus faces many challenges that he wouldn’t have overcome if it wasn’t for the help of the gods.

Many authors have employed the religious beliefs of their cultures in literature. The deities contained in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Biblical book of Exodus reflect the nature of the gods in their respective societies. Upon examination of these two works, there are three major areas where the gods of the Greek epic seem to directly contrast the nature of the God of the Israelites: the way problems are solved, the prestige and status that separates the divine from the masses, and the extent of power among the immortal beings.

“In the Odyssey by homer it’s evident that the god and goddesses have an active role in the everyday life of the epic hero,Odysseus”. A person that has been helped by the gods in the odyssey is odysseus. Odysseus was helped by Aeolus,and Hermes, and the god that hindered him but helped him in the end was poseidon.

“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of

The Odyssey is an epic poem that showcases the heroic actions contrasted with the grave disasters of Odysseus, a tragic hero on his way home from the war in Troy. The author, Homer, shows through Odysseus’ actions that even a hero such as he, has flaws. Flaws that if not acknowledged and learnt from, can spell grave disaster in the journey yet to come. Many Greeks recognize Odysseus as the most renowned hero of the Trojan war, thanks to his own accounts of his years away from Ithaca. Following the Greek beliefs, many believe that Odysseus couldn’t have kept himself away for so long, for only the gods can do something like this, and Odysseus can’t be the cause of the crew’s deaths, only the gods could be so cruel. While

Homer’s Odyssey is one of the great epic poems of Western literature and explores a variety of profound themes. Critical among these themes is man’s relationship with the gods and how this relationship frames his path through life in pursuit of ancient Greek heroic ideals. This report introduces and explains these ideals and then explores how Odysseus’s adventures throughout the Odyssey fit with them. It will be demonstrated that although Odysseus, like all heroes, strives for a good measure of self-determination and independence from the gods, and the varied episodes in which he finds himself have close parallels with the gods’ own experiences as documented throughout the broader canon of classic Greek mythology.

Not anything like this event can be found in the Odyssey. The role of the Gods in the affairs of humanity is much greater in the Iliad then in the Odyssey. In the Iliad, the Olympians are continually interfering in the conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans. At best, they view mortals as hilarious pets to be cared for, played with, and loved. At worst, humans are just trade in to be dragging your feet around, sacrificed, and set against each other in order to resolve inter-Olympian ego-clashes.

The myths of ancient Greece were first passed on orally in the beginning of the eighteenth century by the Minoan and Mycenaean clans (Cartwright). As is expected with oral tales, each teller changed the story to better fit his specific style, and as a result, the original myths became jaded by the tellers. As city-states such as Athens and Sparta began to mingle with one another, the myths became increasingly stable. Myths did not become concrete until the introduction of written works such as the Illiad and Odyssey by Homer, which depicted the bloody close of the Trojan War and the divine intervention by the gods. Throughout the Odyssey, Homer depicts the strenuous, decade-long journey war hero Odysseus must endure in order to reunite with

One of the issues in Homers The Odyssey is understanding the role and function of the goddess Athena. The problem is most pronounced when examining Athena’s duality. She provides Odysseus both her counsel and assistance throughout the story yet she’s also the entity that keeps him exiled from his home. Athena’s role, similar to the other gods, is to correct apparent injustices. “Oh father Zeus and gods and bliss forever let no man holding scepter as a king think to be mild the fatherhood and mercy through his reign. Meanwhile he lives and grieves upon the island of the nymph…” Book 5 lines 9-21. These lines show that Athena is concerned about the injustice that surrounds Odysseus and his son. This suggests that gods can become active in the role of mortals and may aid them to correct inequity through their fate. This paper will explore the obligations Athena had to ensure Odysseus’ voyage home safely as well as the thematic importance of fate in The Odyssey and the intervention and the power of the gods and goddesses. Fate is one of the occurring themes throughout the Odyssey, where the intervention of the gods and goddesses is common due to the triumphs of men and women.