Ghost figures in literature are usually metaphors for the past. In some cases their presence is not meant to haunt or terrify, but rather remind living characters of certain events or feelings, thus creating a link between the living and the dead. This link can provide insight for the living character. In both Homer’s, Odyssey and Vergil’s, Aeneid, the main characters are confronted by the ghost of people from their past. It is in these appearances were both, Odysseus and Aeneas, hear from their deceased loved ones and their contrasting views toward death.
In the passage from Homer’s, Odyssey, Odysseus meets the ghost of the hero Achilles. Achilles describes himself to be “lost” as he confronted by “the Fates.” The rulers of fate, he exclaims
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Creusa describes life after death to be filled with nothing but joy, splendor, happiness, while Achilles’ feels life after death to be gloomy and dreadful. They both however, make reference to the gods in their visits to their loved ones. Creusa explains to her husband that, “fates permit me not from hence to fly;
Nor he, the great controller of the sky.” She also ensures Aeneas that he, “ bear no more than what the gods ordain.” Achilles also notes the idea of worshipping gods both while living and dead, and the influence it may have.
The imagery in these encounters create a mysterious, dark, ominous type of mood. It seems that both Creusa and Achilles appear in the darkness of the night as pale, seemingly glowing figures. These appearances are brief but powerful, like a strong gust of wind. Despite such darkness and brevity, both Creusa and Achilles are not shocked or daunted by the appearance of their loved ones, but instead comforted.
In both Homer’s, Odyssey and Vergil’s, Aeneid, the presence of Creusa and Achille, create a link between the living and the dead. Despite Creusa and Achille conflicting views toward death, Odysseus and Aeneas given emotional guidance in coping with death and learning what life is like after
The Two Sides Eurylochus The epic poem, The Odyssey, written by Homer (Fagles translation) has many different archetypes within the story that causes both the story and the journey to move on to the nest destination. In the same time causes the hero, Odysseus, to continue his journey either by some better or worse situations. In the aforementioned poem there is a character called Eurylochus. He is one of Odysseus’ crew, and he represents more than one archetype within the story.
Have you ever been so afraid to face your fears, that you would simply avoid it, push it aside or ignore it? Throughout the epic poem “The Odyssey”, you learn how people run away from their fears. After twenty years of the great Greek hero Odysseus absence on the island of Ithaka, he fights to make his travel home and defeat whatever lies in his path. In the epic poem “The Odyssey”, the greatest prices are paid when a character doesn’t face their struggles and fears. This is shown by Odysseus’s crew with the bag of winds, his experience with the Cyclops, and with Penelope who never acts on her feelings of Odysseus absence.
Homer’s The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, and his journey home from the Trojan War, and Sophocles’s Antigone tells the story of Antigone, a young woman who is faced with death after she buries her brother against the King’s orders. In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s wife Penelope and son Telemachus were in charge of holding the house together during his absence. Penelope was faced with unruly suitors constantly harassing her for twenty years until her husband came home. Antigone had to endure the king, Creon’s misogynist treatment as she gave her brother a proper burial, though she knew it was against the law.
that Odysseus, the main character of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, is an epic hero. Perhaps the most exciting and attention grabbing parts of The Odyssey are the frightening,
Yet, he has overcome the grief and sorrow of death due to an ancient Greek notion that suggest
Throughout the Phaedo, Socrates predominantly tries to establish the immortality of the soul and persuade the sceptics of the soul’s immortality using the above arguments. The cyclical argument suggests that death and life are opposites that come from one another. In other
“O Brother Where Art Thou?” is a comedy, adventure film produced in 2000. Many of the scenes in this film are based off the Odyssey, which is an epic poem by Homer. It is based on a true hero’s journey back home. There are many correlations and yet differences between the Odyssey and the film. Although the overall plot of “O Brother Where Art Thou?” is vaguely similar to the Odyssey, there are certain “episodes” that closely mirror the film’s classical influence.
He says, “I’d rather be a slave on earth for another man--/some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive--/than rule down here over all the breathless dead.” This is very intriguing to me because Achilles is in a position of power over the Underworld, and is still in agony. Homer’s idea of The Underworld is pretty similar to the ideology of the
The story Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou have a lot of connections to our life just like how Odysseus was on a journey to get home and Everett was on a journey to get the treasure, we all have roadblocks and fears we have to pass. In the text, The Odyssey was written by Homer and the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen both authors deal with the main idea loyalty. Both stories have loyalty as the theme because in the Odyssey Odysseus wife was loyal to him for 20 years while he was gone.
From the onset of the book, death is a recurring event, persistent throughout the entire poem. In many ways, the Odyssey is the story of the death of all of Odysseus’ friends and fellow fighters during their return home from conquering Troy. These deaths are particularly heartbreaking to Odysseus because, normally, one would expect that all dying would conclude with the end of the war against Troy. In this case, however, the anticipation of his return to his family at home became a series of tragedies. This sequence of events changes his view and molds Odysseus’ character in regard to his surviving friends and family.
In the arrival of Odysseus, the treatment of the dead is surrounded in gloomy depressing afterlife that is within the underworld. “The sun never shines there, never climbs the starry sky to beam down at them…their wretched sky is always racked with the night’s gloom.” (17-19) This text reveals the afterlife is giving no sign of happiness, the skies are
“But why did you take me here when you could just do it?” “ You are the only god left, when they banished me here in another dimension, I snuck you here so I could trick you into opening the portal and setting me free!” Achilles spoke one last time “I may have not have known I am a god, but because I am I know what to do
Now I must go to look for the destroyer of my great friend. I shall confront the dark dear spirit of death at any hour Zeus and the other gods may wish to make an end (Q 65-68). Here, Achilles shows fearlessness and audacity in his acceptance of death. However, he accepted his fate, to avenge the killer of his friend Patroclus.
The Odyssey, written by Homer, is one of the most well-known stories about struggle and war, encompassing Odysseus’ twenty-year struggle to battle in the Trojan War and return home. At first glance, the poem appears to be about a “hero’s colorful, salt-caked adventures on the high seas [and] his encounters with witches, nymphs, and cyclops” (Higgins 3). The story relates to that of a soldier’s in today’s time. Throughout the epic poem, Homer reveals the countless number of challenges that Odysseus faces during his adventuress. Odysseus is accompanied by his crew, but unlike other stories, Homer shares the names and families of almost all the fallen crewmen.
“Tell me, Muse, how it all began. Why was Juno so outraged?” This famous quote happens within the first page of the Aeneid and will be the first of many times the Gods appear and interfere during Aeneas’s story. Without the Gods adjusting events to their liking or showing up to the characters and guiding them on what to do in a particular situation, Aeneas’s tale and journey would have been significantly different. This paper will argue that Virgil’s Aeneid presents the Gods as a vital and irreplaceable role within Aeneas’s story.