Expressive Paper #1 – Homer, King of Narratives
While reading “The Odyssey”, I realized why this book is regarded by many as a literary classic. Not so much for the language, since it is a translation of an original Greek text, but more for the themes, motifs and the sequence of events in the story. As mentioned in class, every culture has stories and a storyteller. Homer pretty much corners the market on action adventures.
This book has just about everything. The abused hero, going through trials and tribulations which are (mostly) not his fault, trying to return to his true love, then there are the villains, the suitors, trying their very best to take away Odysseus’ Penelope, and inherit what is rightfully his. Throw in some gods and mysticism for good measure, and not to forget the necessary gruesome slaying of the villains, and we have got a hit on our hands.
I remember reading The Rock’s biography. He mentioned how after he won the title belt, he made a big show of being injured and having to be stretchered out of the ring and backstage. People cannot identify with a perfect person. As much as we strive for perfection, we tend to prefer our heroes with a little bit of a human side to them. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Caesar was this seemingly perfect person that readers found difficult to pity when murdered. However, Brutus, the supposed villain, turns out to be the tragic hero of the story because even though he is supposed to be self-righteous and stoical, his burst of emotion during his argument with Cassius shows that he is only human after all, and the audience is able to sympathize. Even Superman was beaten to death at the hands of Apocalypse before his amazing resurrection a couple of issues later. Therefore, before the readers learn of his great exploits and strengths, the first thing he is doing when introduced is weep by the sea.
Odysseus’ journey home is constantly interrupted, some might say, by no fault of his own. It is his men that let the wind out of the bag and it is them who slaughter Sun’s herd. Even his whole journey gone wrong was by no fault of his own, but only happened because Athena was outraged when Ajax raped the Trojan priestess Cassandra in the temple. It is because Odysseus does not deserve to suffer, most readers would find it impossible not to sympathize and root for him to get home safely to his wife.
However, no self-respecting man could ever say Odysseus was a hero if all he did was weep, suffer and moan about how he missed his wife. No, Odysseus was a cunning man too, able to trick the Cyclops and later poking his eye out. It is true that his pride got the better of him, and had he not shouted out his name, he would have probably got home straight after that incident, but then that is all part of the great story telling of Homer. Get the audience all excited and happy for Odysseus, right before frustrating them again. It is all part of the roller coaster ride that is “The Odyssey”. Not only was Odysseus a ‘man of twist and turns’, he possessed great strength too, throwing a disc further than any Phaecian had ever done when his pride was at stake.
Something less used today would be the idea of gods aiding humans as Athena did Odysseus. Although she is the one that caused him to endure all this trouble, she ends up aiding him in his quest to return home, changing his appearances so that he would not be recognized, imparting bits of wisdom to him along the way and also giving him strength to fight. In modern day society, being the skeptics that we are, the idea of gods aiding humans is way to far fetched to be believable even for a movie where the hero gets shot at and blown up but somehow still walks away with lots of soot on him, but barely a scratch. No, though the divine element has been dropped, somehow one man taking on fifty-seven terrorists still seems just about right, just as Odysseus, his son and the two servants took on ninety-four suitors and other disloyal servants.
Before the grand conclusion that is the slaughtering of the suitors and the servants that were disloyal to Odysseus, he was made to be humiliated by the suitors and undermined, so much so that even the most vocal anti capital punishment activist would have cheered him on during the bloody massacre. This technique of having the hero spat on by his enemies to win support and sympathy for him is still currently being used today, and I am sure as one of the pioneers of this narrative technique, Homer will be glad to know cheers still break out in the cinemas whenever the blood starts to flow.
After this book was written, it is pretty difficult for other writers to claim ideas as original. Be it the tragic hero that suffers the consequences of giving in to temptation (women, drugs, alcohol or any other vice), or the priming of the audience to support the protagonist on his violent quest for revenge, Homer has been there and done that. The timelessness of “The Odyssey” lies not in the beautiful prose, but in its appeal to human nature, the one thing that is as ‘constant as the northern star’.
Where do writers go from here? Is there another premise where as great a story can be created without seemingly drawing themes from classics such as “The Odyssey”? Methinks that it is highly unlikely. Unless human nature changes, and suddenly the tragic hero does not appeal to us anymore, where revenge turns us off completely and a hero who holds his tongue gets more cheers than a ‘hero’ that blows stuff up, rare it will be where an action adventure narrative will have nothing to do with “The Odyssey”. As civilized as we delude ourselves to think we are, we are all still animals at heart.
