In The Odyssey, death is something that is possible while being alive. A person being away from their home, held up in a place against their will without control over their own fate is essentially dead. While Odysseus was held against his will, chaos ensued in his home as his family and home fell apart. Suitors that wanted to steal Odysseus’ fortune as if it were their own harassed Odysseus’ wife Penelope. Telemachus was threatened and the suitors squandered his inheritance. The suitors, who could not be coaxed to leave, were abusing Penelope’s hospitality. If one is held far away from their home, family and life, he is dead. When one’s life is bound to seduction and pleasure and these cease to please, he is essentially dead.
You know how precious a father’s life is
To children who have seen him through a long disease
Gripped by a malevolent spirit and melting away,
But then released from suffering in a spasm of joy.
(Book V, 397-400)
This passage speaks about the feelings of the children of a man nearing death after he reverses the course of his disease and beats the odds of death, returning back to life as it had been. All of the things the proverbial father longed to do but could not do while he was ill could be done once again. Odysseus longs for home, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, as they long for him. Throughout Odysseus’ journeys back to Ithaca, his fate has been wrought to peril and ruin by Poseidon, as Odysseus’ life has melted away from him and his loved ones. As readers, we long to see the foreshadowing of this passage come to its fruition at the end of the poem.
‘Don’t try to sell me on death, Odysseus.
I’d rather be a hired hand back up on earth,
Slaving away for some poor dirt farmer,
Than lord it over all these withered dead.
(Book XI, 510-513)
Here, Achilles says that he would rather be alive with no status than to be dead with fame and legacy, having died prematurely without seeing his son grow. At this point, Odysseus gets a new perspective on life and death, and likely questions his achievements. Were all his adventures and victories worth the years of suffering? Should he have curbed his curious bravado to return to his life in Ithaca instead of trying to make a name for himself? It was now as if Odysseus was already dead. Glory and honor outlive a person, and are the affairs of other people once the person dies. However, Apollo professes that being alive and at home matters more than what others think of a person after he dies.
Patrick, this sounds like it will be very thought provoking. You may want to consider discussing foreshadowing. Maybe a particular moment in the text which identifies when/if the suitors have ceased to be pleased by their constant feasting in Penelope’s home that connects with Athena, Odysseus, and Telemachus’ plans to murder them all. A sort of death before death, once again? Great start!
I like the contrast you have going between a living death (Odysseus) and a dead death (Achilles). It would be interesting to integrate the permanence of these “deaths” into your essay. Odysseus’ death of absence while stuck on Calypso’s island eventually ends in a kind of revival when he finally reaches home. In contrast, Achilles’ death is distressingly permanent. Perhaps this difference in permanence explains why Odysseus is sometimes tempted to sink into the comfort of his death of absence, since the possibility to end it exists; while Achilles would do absolutely anything to live again, despite his comfortable position among the spirits.