Richard Rodriguez RN102 Due 12-19-2010 From “City Sacker” to “Great Hearted”: The Transformation of Odysseus The purpose of an ancient journey, especially that of an ancient hero, is to conduct the hero across difficult thresholds of transformation that demands change in the pattern of the hero’s life. In The Odyssey, the protagonist and hero, Odysseus is returning from a 10-year war in Troy and thus embarking on his own great journey. As Odysseus progresses along his journey he faces conflict externally, however the key conflict he faces is internally. He is struggling to find himself between two identities; the “godlike” hero and “city sacker” and the “long suffering” hero with a “great heart”. Early on it is Oddyseus’ warrior persona that prevails, but ultimately begins to recognize his limits.
They offered Philoctetes a chance to leave the island to help the Greeks fight in Troy. Odysseus was in need of Philoctetes so that the society of Greek would continue to run smoothly. Odysseus said, “My main concern is to keep things moving on in the right direction” (Heaney 57). Philoctetes had to choose between selfishness by remaining on the island to ensure his freedom from slavery or forgive society for abandoning him on the island for ten years. Philoctetes was not sure about leaving the island because he was afraid that his freedom would be taken from him and that he could become a slave of the army.
Odysseus was the King of Ithaca and his wife, Penelope, was the niece of the King of Sparta. Together they had a son named Telemachus. One story says that when Odysseus was called upon to enter the Trojan War he pretended to be crazy to avoid going. An oracle had told him that he would not return for 20 years and that he would return as a beggar. His ruse failed when he was forced to show his sanity in order to save his infant son’s life.
With no place to call home Aeneas and his followers and moved by the gods to find the future sight of Rome where they will make their home before the arrival of the roman founder Romulus. Aeneas though not as courageous as other hero’s or as arrogant showed honor in many of his actions throughout his journey’s beginning that he recounts to Dido when they reached Carthage. Carrying his father on his back to the rendezvous sight in Troy, running back into the city for his lost wife who he only encountered as a ghost, and the rescue of the Greek Achaemenidës from the island of the Cyclops where he was left behind. It is through these actions that some of Aeneas’s character is built. Though
Everett’s main concern is getting back to his wife and seven daughters with the help of his two accomplices, Pete and Delmar. The Odyssey starts out on a much happier note. Odysseus and his wife have their first child together, a boy, who will take his place as king of Ithaca if he happens to die while fighting against the Trojans. He is forced to leave his family behind soon after his son is born, and sails out to go to war. He and his crew end up getting lost on their way back from Troy and going through a series of events just as Everett, Pete and Delmar do on their journey home.
The initial pages of the poem talk about Odysseus and his men at sea, finding their way out of Sparta after the war. In contrast, the movie begins with the birth of Odysseus’ son, Telemachus. After that Odysseus leaves home to go to Troy (later Troy becomes Sparta) to be part of a war. Odysseus is cursed and he will not be able to return home to Ithaca. Many events after occur in a long and adventurous journey and finally, he and what was left of his men return to Ithaca to kill all of the suitors who tried to take his throne while he was gone.
In almost all Greek myths the hero has a hard time leaving his home until he is pushed to do so. In “Theseus” his Poseidon pushes him to save the king that he used to think was his father. In “Star Wars” Luke’s family gets killed by the Empire pushing him to want revenge against them and to learn the way of the force with Obi Won Kanobi. In the initiation part of “Star Wars” Luke Skywalker” goes up against all odds and takes on one
The recent popular movie, starring Brad Pitt as the main protagonist and the tragic hero of the film, Troy, is a screen adaptation of an epic poem The Iliad attributed to Homer. Although covering the last of the many days in the final year of the nine year siege between the Greeks and the Trojans, it tells of the battles and trials during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. It is interesting to note that during the last scenes of this movie, Aeneas, also the central character of the poem The Aeneid, is shown fleeing the burning city of Troy with his father and son, and fellow Trojan warriors through a tunnel. This very scene literally and metaphorically gives way to the Roman version of what would be retold by the Roman poet, Virgil in his account of Homer’s story, The Iliad, in the first century BC. In Virgil’s The Aeneid, after sailing for Italy, where Aeneas’s preordained destiny to found a city of Rome lay, a terrifying storm throws them off their course to a land named, Carthage, where Dido, the queen of the land welcomes them.
O’odysseus where art though; comparing The Odyssey to O’Brother where art thou Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, O’Brother where art thou is a tale of Ulysses Everett McGill trying to make his way home to get to his ex-wife penny before she marries another man. This sounds very familiar to an ancient myth I know. In the Beginning of this movie there is a line that reads” Based upon Homer’s The Odyssey”. This should read loosely based on the Odyssey in my personal opinion. This may be to the fact that the Coen Brothers have never actually read Homer’s Epic Tale.
n the Odyssey and The Alchemist there are many dangers and challenges that the two heroes must brave. The Odyssey is about a man named Odysseus who fought in the Trojan war for ten years. After the war was over Odysseus years tries to find his way home to Ithaca but it takes him ten years to do so, because the gods don’t exactly like him. In the Alchemist there is a young man named Santiago who has a dream about treasure. He eventually pursues his dream and in the end finds out that there really is no treasure.