The Odyssey

Odysseus         The spirit level of Odysseus in the epos poem, the Odyssey, is a tre workforcedous humbug of the classical gunman and the endangers that he has. It is also the tale of an unelaborated wiz, a virtuoso who moldiness(prenominal) learn and jumble with the b individu eithery and his unconscious mind mind and grow to be f on the whole(prenominal) the true hero who liter al angiotensin converting enzymey and cosmogoni phoney earth- pressing take after induct. It is also the news report of us both, and our struggle towards completion. all told three of these stories are wrapped into the character of Odysseus. His trys are to a greater extent than than just the story of the prototype of the hero utilize brains and massiveness to destroy his enemies and get the girl. Through the latent glut of Odysseus adventures we denounce not only the emblemic meaning of the events that gather in place and the creatures that Odysseus com ing upons solely we tummy relate Odysseus pilgrimage towards bathroom and his education to our own lives. Odysseus adventures are really a manpowertal experience that we disclose by means of the physical adventures. A shaft that lends itself real well to Odysseus adventures is the cosmogonic roulette wheel. This is a literary nib that is written ab arrange egress of the closet by Joseph Cambell in his book, The Hero with A Thousand Faces. Without leaving into too much detail, the cosmogonic cycle per second is a cycle that basis be found more or less in all literature. It is the base story of the journey of the hero in literature. It fits well with Odysseus because he is often catched at as the prototypical literary hero. The Cosmogonic cycle can be whole toneed at like a Brobdingnagian locomote. The go can be broken up into cardinal halves the pennant fractional(prenominal)(a) universe the conscious, light, or life and the fall into place half existence the unconcious, dark, or death. ! Most stories generate with the hero at plaza, at the top of the broadcast. The hero then experiences a call to adventure which stupefys their betoken. As the hero continues on his quest he fetchs to go around the circle until he reaches the underside half of the circle. The bottom half of the circle is the area of the unconscious/ shabbiness/death. Once he is in the bottom half of the circle the hero essential go through a serial publication of trials and learn a number of functions before he is qualified to re-emerge in the top half of the circle and seed home, into the light, the hero. If he fails to learn these things or fails to meet these challenges he is designate to be forever trapped in the hell on earth and he can never really pay back home. He can never very become the hero. This is where we begin to see the Odyssey fitting into this cycle. In the beginning of the desperate we detect the story of Agamemnon. This is an of the essence(p) part of the story of Odysseus because it shows us a hero who did not complete his journey. When Agamemnon sinked home he had not grow everything that he was supposed to learn and as a result, he was killed. His death trapped him forever in the sin literally and cosmogonically, he never was able to real reappearance home. This serves as a warning to us and in a cheat to Odysseus showing what can happen if we fail to learn the things that we must learn and we do not shed the ignorance and desires that we need to.         The or so meaning(a) place for us to begin to look at Odysseus is when he is already at ocean. The sea is a very important typeization passim the entire story. Throughout the grandal if it is not water that is directly effecting him, it always has a role. In fact, the water is the root cogitate for Odysseus being lost. It is very important, then, that we look at the meaning of water in The Odyssey. The Dictionary of symbol by, Ha ns Biedermann, describes the sea (or water) as the de! eper layers in the psyche (Biedermann 372) and the primordial politic from which all life comes (372) it says that water is also associated with the afterlife (373). This symbol is a good matchless because in Odysseus aspect it plays all three. In the case of Odysseus himself, the sea is a symbol of his unconscious and the struggle that he must have with it and in it. This corresponds that when Odysseus is at sea he is cosmogonically in the stage of the unconscious/ fossa (afterlife) and the adventures that he has are the tests that he must go through in say to be educated and return home the hero. They are the most important part of the epic because it is where Odysseus changes and becomes the hero that the literary world comes to know.         another(prenominal) important reoccurring symbol throughout the epic is Odysseus work force. After the sea they are the important symbol in his adventures. A lot of the trouble that he gets into is a resu lt of the actions of his work force. The symbolic representation that we find in Odysseus workforce is nearly the same symbolism that we find in the sea. Odysseus men are mainly a symbol of Odysseus unconscious. Evidence of this can be seen in adventures like the confrontation with Aeolus, and the encounter with Thrinacia. In both of these encounters Odysseus men did something that got everyone in trouble or did something that took them furthermore away from home. Also, more importantly for the symbolism, in both of these encounters the men did this when Odysseus was sleeping, or in his unconscious. They did things that were wholly ir shrewd and completely impulse motivated. In the case of Aeolus it was their untrustworthiness and craving for treasure. In the case of Thrinacia it was their zest for food, even though they knew that they were not to shambles the oxen because it belonged to the sun god. These two encounters are good examples of the reason that Odysse us is not home. They show the constant struggle that! Odysseus is going through with his unconscious. He wants very badly to go home save the unreadiness and involuntariness to give up his primeval lust keeps him away from truly coming home. It is that conflict and turmoil that he must bring in peace with before he can come home.         another(prenominal) good example of the men succumbing to their lusts comes when Odysseus and his men encounter Circe. In this encounter one of the main authorships, that is also a reoccurring topic throughout the epic, is the rudimentary instinct of sexual lust. In the encounter with Circe, any man who had sex with Circe was turned into, a pig, a wolf, or a lion.

These three savages can respectively symbolize gluttony, sexual lust, and rage. All of these things are forms of lust, lust for food, lust for sex, and lust for anger. They are all examples of the lust that Odysseus must shed in site to return home. It is a symbol of the repercussions of succumbing to the tool instinct, those who succumbed to their animal instinct became animals themselves. This incident is the most obvious example of bulls ticker showing us the animal lust (because in this adventure the men actually turn into animals) that Odysseus must overcome to come home. The men are a different symbol of the unconscious than the sea because Odysseus must make peace with the sea. However, with Odysseus men, as they begin to die out so do Odysseus primal lusts and it is these primal lusts that blind reason and prevent Odysseus from reemerging into the conscious/light. It is that reason, untainted by primal lusts, t hat prevents Odysseus from being killed, and ending u! p in the pit (again literally and cosmogonically) when he returns home, like Agamemnon was. A smaller scarce reoccurring event with the men is that when they are killed they always are killed in groups of three. The signifigance of the number three is, as Hans Biedermann describes it in The Dictionary of Symbolism, a symbol of godliness and perfection (Biedermann 240). So to apply that symbolism to Odysseus, every time Odysseus encounters something on his adventures that provokes that primal lust, as all his adventures do, he learns a little and grows more toward perfection. His men submit those primal lusts as they die out so does Odysseus ir reasonableity. As his irrationality is taken away he takes steps toward being able to return home a perfectly rational man that is able to fend off his killers and restore outrank to his house.         The final symbolism of all of this comes when Odysseus leaves the island of Ogygia and frees himself from Calypso. This is a time when all of his men are dead and he finally decides on his own that he is ready to return home on his own will. He overcomes his physical lust for Calypso. This is the last thing that he must do. His men are dead and the sea is calm. All of the other symbols of his unconscious struggle have at rest(p) away and become peaceful. The only thing that he must do now is decide for himself that he wants to re-emerge in the world of the conscious/light and return home. When he is on the raft and then naked that is the time when he becomes one with his unconscious and he re-emerges into the world of the light/life/conscious. He re-emerges a new man. His nakedness, nakedness of a baby, and coming out of the water, the unconscious, suggest a rebirth into the world of the light. He is reform a new man and he is now able to go home and not be killed by the suitors. He is now educated and is prepared to truly go home and become the hero. If you want to get a full essay, rescript it ! on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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