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Water In The Odyssey

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Between water, floods, and sea travel, water can present itself in different functions and can be symbolic especially in the readings that we were required to read this past week. Throughout the texts, water was a major factor, but the two that I felt expressed water the most were in both the Bible (Genesis) and also the Odyssey. In both of these texts water, more specifically flooding for the Bible and sea travel in the Odyssey, represented different meaning and showcased itself through different images for the readers to grasp. Just between these two stories, it’s amazing how water can not only produce different forms throughout these stories, but after analyzing can also create different symbols and representations or interpretations.
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The sea travel in the Odyssey is an image of struggle and hardship of what Odysseus encounters and has to preserver through in order to get his ultimate wish of being home with his wife Penelope after many years. It seems that every time that Odysseus attempts to get closer to home, he is rerouted into other trouble or events that cause him to redirect in an opposite direction than where Ithaca is. It says strictly in the text that Odysseus had a desire to go home, “Only Odysseus still longed to return to his home and his wife.”(pg. 178). Following by “For Odysseus to return home to Ithaca, though no teven there did his troubles end, even with his dear ones around him,” expressing early in the book that Odysseus would have challenges on his journey home (pg. 187). I think that the water is symbolic of the longing of Penelope that Odysseus is experiencing through his sea travel. Throughout the book, the longer Odysseus is on the sea, the more struggles he has which increases his desire to be home which is explanatory considering how long he’s been away from his family and home. The longer Odysseus was at sea, the more desire he obtained for his wife and his home. Through the Sirens, the cyclops, Poseidon and Zeus trying to punish him, and many other islands that Odysseus journeyed through, it was all a test of his desire and events that taught him about himself that lead to the eventual reunion with

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