Odysseus Journey In Homer's The Odyssey

In the epic poem The Odyssey, written by Homer and translated by Robert Fitzgerald and another version translated by Samuel Butler, Odysseus journey is relevant to today because he had to leave for war in Troy for ten years and then for another ten years had to get himself and his men home leaving his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope behind in Ithaca; in 2015 some fathers go off to war and are gone for so long that are considered dead or missing in action and have to find their way back; then when they come back everything get’s changed around. Some of the challenges Odysseus faced were sea monsters (Scylla and Charybdis), cyclops, going to and from the land of the dead, lotus eaters, getting stuck on islands with strange women, sirens, etc. (not in order). Men that have gone MIA/considered dead would have to have faced pirates if they were trying to get back home overseas, enemy’s capturing them, being shipwrecked, etc.

Polyphemus ate two of his men for breakfast and dinner leaving Odysseus with only half a dozen of men by the time they make the plan to escape. Odysseus and his men had to come up with a way to hurt the 09Cyclops, but not kill him doing so he and his men blinded the Cyclops making him open the cave door that was a huge boulder that “Two dozen four-wheeled wagons, with heaving wagon teams, could not have stirred the tonnage of that rock” (Homer 9.144-145). Men that are captured by the enemies are beaten and some even killed. These men that are trying to get home to their families have to either escape or do what they can to stay alive until they are let out of a P.O.W (Prisoner of war) camp or they are saved by their