Memory’s Odyssey
An Odyssey is a long serious of adventures filled with hardships overcome. In discussing the epic, The Odyssey, we study around our namesake hero Odysseus. He is lauded for his cunning and virtue, and forgiven for his momentary lapses of human behavior because in the end his story merits praise. However, there is a forgotten hero who matches Odysseus in cunning and strategy; Memory. Without an audience to invigorate it a memory is left to limbo, like a fallen tree without an ear to hear. Further, memory can only access an audience through an orator. Shared memories and story-telling play a major role throughout the epic, and so in guiding the retelling of Odysseus’ adventures Memory is narrating the story of how she sought her own survival by facilitating a beneficent relationship with great orators. While a bard may tell stories as a form of entertainment, Memory lends herself to Odysseus as a versatile tool, finding different ways to use stories of the past to help him advance in his objectives as his breath gives her life.
Memory used to build a relationship
In books IX through the middle of XI, Odysseus is telling his story to King Alcinous, helping to establish trust so that he may find a way home. As he becomes the narrator it may shift the spotlight from our usual storyteller, but who must Odysseus rely upon to speak of the past for 33 pages? Memory. Had memory not aided him, Alcinous may not have been willing to risk his men and gift his treasure to a stranger, and the audience would not have been informed of Odysseus’ adventures.
There are multiple examples all throughout the text where strangers exchange stories, or bond over common tales to establish trust and friendship to build a relationship upon. However, our cunning heroes do more than that. When Odysseus finally returns home and is still hiding his identity, his memories of the Trojan war come to him with a twist. He speaks of real events, but remembers in them in a way that repositions him to protect his temporary identity. Some of the information he tells Eumaeus in Book XIV is fabricated, certainly coming from Odysseus’ mind as only the truth can be remembered. But, Memory pours truth into his story to make his words believable and establish a relationship essential to Odysseus’ successful return to Ithaca;
“We Greeks waged war, and in the tenth
We sacked Priam’s city and sailed for home
In our ships, and a god scattered the fleet.”
Pg 494 lines 264-266
A memory is also used as an emotional weapon. After having endured shameful behavior from the suitors, Odysseus speaks to Amphinous aside and says
“Amphinous, you come across as a sensible man,
Just as your father was. I have heard of him…
He spoke, poured libation, drank the sweet wine,
And then gave the cup back to Amphinomus,
Who went away hrough the hall with his head bowed
And his heart heavy with a sense of foreboding.”
Book XVIII lines 132-133, 160-164
Odysseus cannot express his anger overtly in any way, and so he must be creative in how he inflicts pain. Amphinous walks away wounded, but without a single mark of physical abraision because Memory supplied Odysseus with the perfect anecdotal introduction to his attack.
Memory used as motivation
Odysseus’s story is pitiful, and part of what has made it so epic is the way his fortune draws emotion from the readers. Primarily we admire his strength and perseverance. Though if we stop to consider their source, we find another hero. Memory replays powerful moments and thoughts to keep him motivated.
When he needs strength, she helps him to remember the virtue he displayed while faces Polyphemus the cyclopse.
“So Odysseus growled at their iniquity,
But he slapped his chest hard and scolded his heart:
‘Endure, my heart. You endursed worse than this
On that day when the invincible Cyclops
Ate our comrades. You bore it until your cunning
Got you out of the cave where you thought you would die.’”
Book XX lines 19-24
Memory is our narrator, and who better to tell the story than someone active in weaving it?
Personifying memory to analyze memory’s role in the text–brilliant. Not only that, but focusing on the give and take relationship between memory and Odysseus to root your thesis. The Odyssey is a nesting doll of stories, and you are giving that doll a personality, as per ancient Greek tradition. The oral tradition behind this epic adds yet another dimension to this idea of memory as a narrator and participant.
Viewing the topic from your angle will definitely inspire more depth in my own essay on memory, so thank you for enlightening me with your creativity!
Hi Viv,
You have done an excellent job of choosing moments when memory does different kinds of work–spurring characters to action or introspection. I’m excited to see this paper develop.
A few thoughts on claim: Here, your explicit claim is that memory is a kind of hero, akin to Odysseus. This claim relies on personifying memory–or rather, on arguing that HOMER personifies memory consistently throughout. I am not sure you can fully support this. While memory is personified in the invocation, individual memories of the kind you refer to in the body are not, usually, portrayed in anthropomorphic terms. Instead of claiming “memory is a hero,” you may want to claim that memory does a certain kind of work–it’s a tool, it’s a mechanism, it’s a weapon at times! That is, instead of arguing for “what memory is,” craft an argument about “what memory does.” (If you do this well, your idea of memory as heroic may end up creeping back in–I’m fascinated by something you imply here, as memory as an alternative to violence/weaponry, in certain situations).
Hope this helps–really looking forward to the paper itself!!
LK