The ‘Odyssey’; a heroic poem telling the amazing feats of the poor, wonderful, ‘resourceful’ Odyesseus.
… if you were to tell the abridged version. Yet if read properly, the ‘Odyssey’ portrays a man that may not be as perfect as he may first seem.
Countless times, Odysseus shows weakness and ‘door matt’ish behaviour. In the city of the Cicones, his men easily persuade him to stay, resulting in the loss of many men when the Cicones attack. He is careless when on the isle of the Lotus Eaters, sending a few men off to search, when really, he should be responsible for testing if the lay of the land is okay. Furthermore, when they reach the land of the Laestrygonians, Odysseus is clever and moors his boat outside of the harbour. The only thing is is that he doesn’t tell the rest of his ships to do this, and the moor in the harbour, so when they are attacked by the Laestrygonians, only Odysseus’ ship manages to escape as they are already away from the enclosed bit of land. He lets his curiosity get the better of him when, despite his men’s warnings and his feeling that something bad will happen, he stays to explore Polyphemus’ cave. This results in them having to escape this cyclops, and they nearly make it away unscathed when Odysseus just has to go and taunt Polyphemus; Polyphemus asks Poseidon to curse Odysseus, to not reach Ithaca for a long time, and to lose all of his men. This later becomes the demise of many of his men.
In my opinion, the worst thing that Odysseus does is to keep the truth hidden from his men. Aeolus gives them the winds in a bag; Odysseus has no need to refrain from telling his men this, but he does so anyway. His men believe it is a bag of treasure, and when they are nearly back in Ithaca, they open it in spite, and are sent all the way back to Aeolus, who refuses to help them a second time. This happens again, when he forgets to tell his men why they should not touch the cattle of the Sun God, despite being persistently being warned against it. His men think that he is just being unnecessarily restrictive, and so kill and eat some of the cattle. (Oh, and I might add that this is while Odysseus has randomly wandered off and fallen asleep) So the result is death for all of his men, and Odysseus is left all alone.
Throw in some sleeping with women who aren’t his wife, a bit of a short temper and laziness when it comes to leaving Aeaea, and you’ve got quite a wonderful image of a hero, right?
However, there are good parts of Odysseus which I feel I must add (rather reluctantly, mind, as it weakens my point a little). From his run ins with the Cicones and the Laestrygonians, Odysseus learns to be a little more wary when approaching strange lands. Before searching the land of the Cyclopes, he moors his ships on a neighbouring island just to be safe, and only takes a select few men to investigate. He is also very clever in thinking of the plan to escape from Polyphemus; not everyone would think to strap themselves to the underside of some sheep.
He is also careful in the way that he approaches Circe’s place, by acting fairly, drawing lots to see who explored and who stayed behind to wait for word. When he hears that his men have been turned in to pigs, he goes alone to rescue them, so as not to risk any more of his men. He manages to follow Hermes’ instructions perfectly, and when Circe tells him what to do in Hades, he follows these instructions too.
He knows not to make his men afraid, so instead of telling them about Scylla, he lets them focus on Charybdis. Sure, men die, but it is not because of his often-poor leadership skills; they have to do this in order to get home.
When he is with Calypso, we really see that one of his main desires is to be back home with his wife; we see his weakness because of this, and so he is turned in to the vulnerable good guy with whom people will tend to side.
What is more is that he knows when to hold off from being a man for a girl. He is respectful of Nausicaa’s age, innocence and status; he does not take up any of her advances, and refuses to walk in to the city with her for fear that it will be inappropriate for a young, high-status girl to walk in to the city with an older, unknown man.
When he returns home, he does not rush back immediately without thinking. He has planned that he must bide his time and win the trust of those loyal to him while he is disguised. This is clever of him, and because he does this, he is able to win back his estate and his wife.
From all of the good that he does, Odysseus seems like a caring and strong hero; from all of the bad that he does, he is just a regular man who somehow managed not to do die because he was cunning and could follow instructions.
I looked at Homer’s portrayal of Odysseus in order to aid my project, as I really love the two sides to Odysseus. On the outside, he is a hero, but if you actually know the story, or look at it a tiny bit more carefully, we see that he is not so perfect at all. When producing my film, I don’t want my character to be a flat stereotype of a mentally ill person, but I want to show that he has a personality and that I have learned about someone who is a psychopath.
I thought that I would take a look at the use of sound in this movie as I remembered that it was more interesting than other movies that I have watched recently.
Gabriella Passerello 
