Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory - Analysis, The Odyssey | The Odyssey by Homer- Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

THE SEA

Frankly, if we were Odysseus, we'd never get in a boat again. (If fact, we suspect he won't: Teiresias tells him that he's actually going to live out his days inland, so far ashore that no one will recognize an oar.) The sea in the Odyssey is nothing but trouble. Every other line, it's throwing something else at him or his men, who are "bobbing like sea crows" right before the "god took away their homecoming" (12.417-19).

As Odysseus succinctly puts it to the Phaiakians,

We are Achaians coming from Troy, beaten off our true course by winds from every direction across the great gulf of the open sea, making for home, by the wrong way, on the wrong courses. So we have come. So it has pleased Zeus to arrange it. (9.259-262)

This little passage actually sums it up nicely: the sea seems to represent the huge gulf between the power of men and the power of the gods. The ancient Greeks may have been good sailors, but there's only so much you can do with a (relatively) small boat and a handful of men. Sailors put themselves at the mercy of the wind, and so the sea comes to represent, well, life itself: full of suffering, subject to angry gods, and very occasionally willing to send something good your way.

ODYSSEUS' BOW

Sometimes a bow is just a bow—and sometimes it's a symbol of kingship and virility, like when Penelope sets up a content so that the man who can string the bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads will win her hand in marriage. Really, Homer practically hits us over the head with it:

First, Telemachos struggles but eventually "would have strung it" (21.128), when Odysseus stops him. (Good idea, if you ask us—that would be kind of disturbing.) Then, the suitors start failing, and Eurymachos spells it out, in case we still don't get it: "it is not so much the marriage I grieve for … it is the thought, if this is true, that we come so far short of godlike Odysseus in strength, so that we cannot even string his bow" (21.250-25). And what does Odysseus do? He strings that bow just like a man stringing a lyre, "without any strain" (21.409).

Well, we sure know who Penelope's going home with tonight.

ARGOS

Odysseus' old dog becomes a tear-jerking symbol of loyalty. He's lying in a dung heap covered in ticks, when he perceived that Odysseus had come close to him, he wagged his tail, and laid both his ears back; only he now no longer had the strength to move any closer to his master, who, watching him from a distance, without Eumaios noticing, secretly wiped a tear away […]. (17.300-305).

Truly, man's best friend. Of course, that makes it all the more surprising when, just a few books later, Odysseus calls the suitors "dogs" for thinking that he "never […] would any more come back from the land of Troy" (22.35-36). What gives?

Food and Banqueting

What isn't an occasion for a feast in the Odyssey? Whether they're feasting on poisoned witch-food, Helios' cattle, or lotus fruit, Odysseus' men are constantly eating; and Telemachos has to literally avoid Nestor so he doesn't have to attend any more feasts; and even the suitors endlessly gorge themselves.

We already know that hospitality is super important in the world of the Odyssey (see our "Theme" section for more on that), and we get another clue when Eurylochos tells us that "hunger is the sorriest way to die and encounter fate" (12.341). It's ignoble: he sees it as being "pinched to death" (12.351). Better to go out fighting—or feasting—than to die slowly of hunger.

So in one sense, feasting represents a kind of heroic attitude toward life. Instead of just sitting around and waiting to die, the heroes of the Odysseywant to live life fully. At the same time, food is a way to show that you understand and respect the rules. When it's time for dinner at Eumaios' house, Homer takes his time describing it:

The swineherd stood up to divide the portions, for he was fair minded, and separated all the meat into seven portions. One he set aside, with a prayer, for the nymphs and Hermes, the son of Maia, and the rest he distributed to each man, but gave Odysseus in honor the long cuts of the chine's portion of the white-toothed pig, and so exalted the heart of his master. (14.432-438)

This is serious business. In more ways than one, food is a matter of life and death

Linens

If you can't just go to Target to pick up some 30% off extra-long sheets for your dorm room bed, cloth takes on whole new meaning. When you're carding, spinning, and weaving every inch of it yourself, it becomes super valuable—and you're not going to waste any of it, which is why most Greek clothing was just made up of cloth wrapped and tied around the body.

In the Odyssey, linens—blankets, sheets, and clothing—are associated with hospitality, and even more particularly with women's hospitality. And that makes sense. Women's primary activity was making cloth. You know how you don't go anywhere without your smartphone? It was like that, only instead of a smartphone, substitute distaff: a tool used to spin raw material into thread.

A quick list should prove our point: Penelope insists on decking beggar Odysseus out in nice cloth, telling her maids to "give him a wash and spread a couch for him here, with bedding and coverlets and with shining blankets, so that he can keep warm as he waits for dawn of the golden throne" (19.317-18); Helen gives Telemachos a dress for his wife to wear; and Nausikaa—who's off at the stream doing her laundry—gives Odysseus clothing to wear. Sure, men talk about cloth, too. Menelaos emphasizes how many blankets his palace has. But who do you think made all those blankets? Not this great Greek hero.

And, of course, Penelope is the master of linen-symbolism. She spends all her time weaving a shroud for Laertes and then unweaving it at night. We're not experts or anything, but anyone who's ever had to deal with a family's laundry can probably identify with this: a mountain of cloth that's never, ever done.

Home

All Odysseus wants it to go home. Sure, the goddess-sex is nice; yeah, Nausikaa is kind of cute; but he really just wants to go home. He tells us that "what I want and all my days I pine for is to go back to my house and see my day of homecoming" (5.219-20); and then that "there is nothing worse for mortal men than the vagrant life" (15.343); and then, when he finally does make it home, hugging his wife is like arriving on shore after nearly drowning.

Yeah, we think "home" is important. There's even a fancy Greek word for how important the concept of "homecoming" was to the Greek: nostos. Recognize that? It's the room of our word "nostalgia": the longing for home.
The thing is, the desire to be home conflicts with the ancient Greek imperative to go out and win honor. You can't become a hero if you're sitting by the fireside with your wife. And a lot of scholars see the Odysseyas specifically about nostos, in contrast to the Iliad, which is about kleos, or fame and glory. Notice how Odysseus' desire for kleos—telling Polyphemos his name and address—is exactly what gets him farther and farther away from nostos?

But twenty-four books later, and we're still not sure which one wins. Is nostos the higher good, after all? Remember that Achilleus in the underworld says that he regrets his choice to go for glory: he'd rather be a slave on earth than a king in the underworld. Or is kleos still the better option—no matter how much you miss your wife's white arms?

The Bed

Odysseus and Penelope don't just sleep on some compressed particle board from Ikea. Nope. Not this ancient Greek power couple. They sleep on a bed carved into an honest-to-Zeus olive tree. Listen to Odysseus describe it:

There was the bole of an olive tree with long leaves growing strongly in the courtyard, and it was thick, like a column. I laid down my chamber around this … Then I cut away the foliage of the long-leaved olive, and trimmed the trunk from the roots up, planning it with a brazen adze, well and expertly, and trued it straight to a chalkline, making a bedpost of it, and bored all hones with an auger. (23.190-288).

We think you can probably figure this one out for yourselves, but we'll spell it out anyway: the bed represents Odysseus and Penelope's marriage. It can't be moved. Bam.

Omens

It's a good thing that we don't put much stock in augury anymore, or we'd be freaking out every time we saw a pigeon. In ancient Greece, anything could have meaning—but especially some things, like birds, entrails, and blind prophets.

In fact, one of the (many) ways we know the suitors are up to no good is that Eurymachos dismisses the whole idea of prophecy. "In any case we fear no one," he says, "nor do we care for any prophecy, which you, old sir, may tell us, which will not happen" (21). In contrast, Telemachos trusts prophecies and prophets. When Theoklymenos tells him that "not without a god's will did this bird fly past you on the right" (15.34), he's not 100% convinced—but he's definitely not impious.

The omens and prophecies that the Odyssey's characters constantly seem to encounter remind us that we're not operating in a world in which there's much room for free will. (Check out our "Theme" section on "Fate and Free Will" for more about that.) Everything—or almost everything—is preordained, and omens are just the gods' way of cluing us in. Kind of like "Next week in your life …"