Odyssey Response

I’m pleased with myself. I actually liked this book. Plus, it wasn’t even written in ‘proper English’! Oh yeah, and it was a poem, not novel! I think there are different things that we notice when reading it by ourselves and in class. When I read it I just thought of it as really cool. (Especially the second half of it.) Odysseus is such a great hero, he’s loving and he seems to be pretty perfect at almost anything, such a lovable character. (To me anyway.) I didn’t really notice too many flaws either.


Yet, when we talk about it in class and discuss it further, other things are found. Why would Odysseus stay at Kirke’s island for 1 whole year? How could such a great hero get his own shipmates into trouble with the Kyklopes? Why would he lie so much? Although I did notice some of these things when I was reading by myself, I might have tried to ignore them! Anyway, it’s interesting because there are many possible answers to why Odysseus did these things. However none of the answers seem 100% correct, as these mistakes he makes seem so unlike the Odysseus that is known to the world. Such a famous person, yet he makes small obvious mistakes.


I also liked how Odysseus seems like such a great person, yet he still has things to learn. How he learnt about death in Hades, for example. It is probably because he is so adventurous that he would be able to become such a hero though. Without all this experience and emotion, would he have been able to become such a great man? Odysseus weeping (and Telemakhos) is quite personal to me. I think I quite like this way that people can be open about their crying and it isn’t really seen as a weakness. I thought the book showed strength in a whole different aspect. Since having fame is one of the most important things, Odysseus tries really hard to go on all these crazy journeys to gain it. Ah- This is just, I don’t know how to say.


When I first thought about all these ‘dumb’ things Odysseus did, I was quite disappointed in him and my image of him broke a bit.  Now thinking about it from a distance, this might actually be good. I mean, it seems more realistic and achievable? It’s as if it’s giving people hope, telling them how people make mistakes and even heroes are not perfect. Maybe it emphasizes how even with these problems, people still like Odysseus so much. (Gosh, if such a hero was this ‘bad’, I don’t want to know what the ‘normal’ people were like.)




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