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Chapter One: The Hero Emerges
- University of Michigan Press
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Chapter One the hero emerges O dysseus” exists in the minds of modern readers as a ‹nished character : we know all about him. But of course we are seeing the hero from the far end of a long tradition.1 Any particular realization evolves as part of a larger ‹ctive construct and in that sense exists only within that work. Although Odysseus’ earliest appearance in Western literature is in the Iliad, and the portrait in the Odyssey can be understood against the background of that work,2 the character we encounter in Homer’s later epic is ‹nally and primarily the creation of that poem. The making of Odysseus in the Odyssey occurs on more than one level. He comes into being for us, like any ‹ctional character, as we look on from outside the frame of the story. At the same time, he also becomes himself within the frame of the story, reappearing after a long absence . He has been, of course, “Odysseus” at Troy, doing all the things that establish and guarantee his identity as a warrior. This persona draws on the Odysseus of the Iliad, and we also hear something about it from Nestor, Menelaus, and Helen. But the Odyssey is not a war poem. The centripetal hero of its story must be a different version of Odysseus, one whose identity is grounded in Ithaka. And because his return is problematical , so is his identity: he does not become himself again, in the fullest sense, until he is home, reinhabiting the roles of king, husband, father, and son. For all of these reasons, the making of Odysseus is fundamental to the 3 “ meaning of the Odyssey.3 As he comes into being on various levels, we may re›ect on the terms of his existence, asking in particular what they can tell us about how the poem is articulated and how it re›ects the riddles of human identity. book 1: absence The Odyssey begins with its hero missing. Indeed, the ‹rst four books— and to some extent the ‹rst twenty-two books—are informed by the absence of Odysseus, with all the dire consequences this lacuna entails. The centripetal plot of the poem is driven from start to ‹nish by the imperative to ‹ll the void, political and familial, left by the king’s departure to Troy from Ithaka twenty years before, either with his triumphant return or with the installing of one or more surrogates. The narrative is, in this sense, comic in form, shaped by the need for restoration: nothing in the story, human desire or human suffering, divine anger or even divine love, can override this primary impulse. Who will restore order and how are the principal questions the poem dramatizes for us. And because the disorder has multiple dimensions, full or partial restoration might occur in various ways. Odysseus has left empty four crucial roles: king of Ithaka, husband to Penelope, father to Telemachus, and son to Laertes. Only the ‹rst two could be ‹lled by anyone but Odysseus, and they are not necessarily compatible. Succeeding Odysseus as Penelope’s husband would not automatically imply succession either to the kingship in Ithaka or the estates of the king.4 What we are told seems to suggest that if Odysseus were to be given up for dead Penelope could return to the home of her father, who would marry her to another man (e.g., 1.291–92; 2.114–15; 16.74–77; 20.334–37). Telemachus, meanwhile, when he reaches manhood, would appear to be the obvious heir to his father’s estate and the of‹ce of king, but could not serve as a new husband for his mother. These distinctions are not brought before us as the story opens, perhaps because the original audience would be presumed to understand them without explanation. In any event, the poet blurs them early on: we learn by the end of book 4 (663–72) that the suitors are plotting to murder Telemachus, which would clear the way not only for Penelope’s remarriage but also, presumably, for someone outside the royal family to 4 the unknown odysseus [54.210.83.20] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:32 GMT) seize Odysseus’ wealth and of‹ce. As for Laertes, we may imagine what would be in store for him with both Odysseus and Telemachus dead. Even before we learn of the nefarious intentions of the suitors toward Telemachus, the moral paradigms embedded in...