The Roles Of Zeus And Poseidon In The Odyssey

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The Roles of Zeus and Poseidon in The fate of the epic heroes in The Odyssey is influenced profoundly by the functions of Zeus and Poseidon. Throughout The Odyssey the function of Zeus is being a mentor whereas Poseidon’s function is being the nemesis of the epic hero Odysseus throughout his ten year journey back home from the Trojan War to his wife Penelope and son Telemakhos in Ithaka. The anthropomorphic gods represent both antagonists and protagonists in that they either assist or thwart the epic hero Odysseus directly and indirectly along with determining the fates of mortal men in the process. The gods in The Odyssey reflect ancient Greek cultural values and anxieties in the process of determining the fate of the epic hero, and for the reason they assist or thwart the epic hero through his troublesome encounters in route back to Ithaka. The gods assist and favor those heroes who uphold their values, but they also hinder them with tribulations when they show lack of regards for their values. It seems as if Zeus always has influence over Odysseus’s fate from the beginning of the epic when Poseidon begins to hinder his attempts to return home. This can be inferred by Zeus when he replies to his daughter Athena’s anxiety for Odysseus’s entrapment on the island of Ogygia by Kalypso by responding to her “My child, what strange remarks you let escape you. Could I forget that kingly man, Odysseus?”(I, 83-84). This shows to be a bit of a clue that Zeus is at ease and in control of Odysseus’s fate. Zeus assures her that no other god, but only the god of the sea, Poseidon that grudges against Odysseus for poking out the eye of his son Polyphemos. Zeus mentions to Athena that Poseidon would not do him harm for he reminds her “Naturally, the god, after the blinding—mind you, he does not kill the man; he only buffets him away from home. But com now, we are all at

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