Comparing Odysseus And Penelope In Homer's The Odyssey

Homer’s The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, contains a man named Odysseus who can relate to today’s soldiers of the military by the power of love. Odysseus fights his way back home seeing he loves his wife monumentally, just as military wives and husbands love their spouse or child. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is king and a loving husband to his wife Penelope. Odysseus and Penelope have a son shortly before Odysseus must fight in the Trojan War for ten years. During the ten years, Odysseus fights for the love and hope of returning to his wife and people back on Ithaca. In the end, Odysseus and his comrades are the victors of the war. After the war ends, Odysseus and his men travel back toward home, but only Odysseus returns. Many lives have been lost over the seven year odyssey Odysseus and his men are taken upon. Odysseus loved all of his men as brothers. This is why both Odysseus and his comrades, when seeing their friends brutally murdered, “cried aloud” (Homer 378) when the cyclops “went on filling his belly with manflesh” (Homer 378).

During war, military men and women often fight for the massive love for their country or families. These are the exact feelings Odysseus has when fighting in the Trojan War. When war finally ends for the soldier, all they want to do is return home; just as Odysseus wanted. Tiresias, the blind seer, knows this about Odysseus and specifically tells him. “‘A fair wind and the honey lights of home are all you seek’” (Homer 390). At last, when the military man or woman gets home, their hearts are filled with happiness. They missed the family that they haven’t laid eyes upon in months, or maybe years. Odysseus feels this way when he returns to his wife. “The ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms” (Homer