Mikaela B. Sandy
English 2800
Prof. Peer
September 9th , 2017
The journey with an unknown known ending
In “The odyssey” Odysseus is portrayed as this strong and untouchable man. In book eleven he is reduce to a simple human being that fears death. He is not only scared of dying himself but he also fears for it to happen to the people that he loves. This part of his journey is necessary because he needs to ask a prophet how to get home and the prophet is in the world of the death. This represents the need of each person to understand and confront their fear to be able to continue their journey.
Throughout the Odyssey we can see the different rituals that they are use to perform. We see the hospitality ritual, the gift giving ritual and also the presenting ritual. All these costumes are of course rules for a society of living people. What happens when you meet with death do the same rituals apply? The following paragraph is the first time Odysseus talks to the death “Then I address the blurred and breathless dead, vowing to slaughter my best heifer for them before she calved, at home in Ithaka’ and burn the choice bits on the altar fire” He does not identify himself in front of the death he simply starts talking to them. This is atributte it to the believe he has in Gods and Afterlife. He considers people that are death to know the truths of the mortal world. He is offering the death sacrifices. He is trying to please the death. It could be that he fears them and wants to buy them with gifts and sacrificies. He may also know that his unavoidable future is to be dead and he is giving them what he would like to receive after death. It is clear to him that the end of his journey will be in that place.
Odysseus fear death not necessarily because he himself will suffer it but because the people he loves will eventually die. “And tried three times, putting my arms around her, but she went sifting through my hands, impalpable as shadows are, and wavering like a dream. Now this embittered all the pain I bore, and I cried in the darkness:” He sees his mother in the world of Hades and tries to embrace her but he is not able to, he tries to do it again two more times. This shows Odysseus in a stage of denial for the death of her mother. He says “and I cried in the darkness” This could mean that he did not want somebody to see him cry and fear the death of
“But first came shades in thousands, rusting in a pandemonium of whispers, blown together, and the horror took me that Persephone had brought from darker hell some saurian death’s head. I whirled then, made for the ship” Odysseus wanted to keep talking with “great souls that perished in times past” but then all the death were coming at him and he was afraid that he would also find the head of Saurian. This is the last part of book 11. Odysseus is scared because he could stay there forever and like any mortal he to is scared of death.