Odysseus's Revenge

Well damn. 

We finally got the climactic battle scene today, the one that we've been waiting for throughout the entire second half of the book, and it was certainly worth the wait. We got to see Odysseus finally take out all of his anger at being away from home for 20 years on the suitors, who all died. Pretty much everyone at the palace died actually, except the main characters and some of the servants. While I was happy for Odysseus at first when he killed Antinous, his later actions were extremely brutal, and highlighted some of his main flaws that make him unsympathetic for me as a hero.

Throughout the entire story, people have pointed out lots of flaws with Odysseus's character; his aid from Athena, unfaithfulness to Penelope, and his excessive pride. But, for me, the thing that makes me like Odysseus the least is that he's often extremely violent, especially after he returns to Ithaca. Since he usually does such a good job keeping his emotions in check, it was surprising to me that he wants to kill Melanthius for kicking him before stopping himself, and comes very close to killing Iros.

In "The Slaughter in the Hall," we see a lot of Odysseus's violence and his need for revenge. He's actually offered a pretty fair compromise from one of the suitors at the beginning of the chapter; they apologize and offer to pay him back for everything they took. I feel like a real, truly just hero would have taken this deal, but Odysseus instead kills them all, showing his need for revenge and to let out all of his anger. For me, the most disturbing part of the chapter was when Odysseus tortured Melanthius. Melanthius was actually much less of a "bad" character than some of the suitors; all he really did was insult Odysseus a couple of times and support the suitors; but he still gets a much worse death. I think it's sort of absurd for Odysseus to expect him to remain loyal after 20 years away, so he does what he does pretty much just out of personal revenge. The way he kills Melanthius, when he's no longer a threat, is very calculated. He ties him up, and then cuts pretty much everything off of him (I mean everything), and then just leaves him to bleed out. For me, this action was the most brutal committed by anyone in the Odyssey, and to see Odysseus, our supposed "hero" do it, made me really rethink how much of a hero he was.

In Defense of the Suitors

Throughout the Odyssey, Homer clearly labels the suitors as the bad guys, perhaps even the main villains of the story. Many people are outraged by what they're doing, and it seems pretty clear that most or all of them are going to be killed in the upcoming book, "Slaughter in the Hall." While most of the main characters (Odysseus, Telemachus, Athena) seem to be convinced that being killed is all that they deserve, I personally think that a lot of the suitors aren't that bad.

First, we should look at the reasons that the suitors are viewed so badly by Odysseus and the other characters. Odysseus clearly personally hates them because he thinks they're trying to steal his wife and throne, and they are generally disliked by the public for staying too long at Odysseus's palace and abusing their hospitality. They are also accused of treating some servants and "lower-class" people poorly.

Though some suitors are undoubtedly guilty of all of these things, I think it's important to make distinctions between them. I don't think that all of the "suitors" are completely obsessed with marrying Penelope seizing power, which is what Odysseus hates them for, and a lot of them are there for completely different reasons, though I definitely think the people that started it, such as Antinous, want power. Let's look at this in context. You're a 20-year-old son of a noble in the Ithaca region. There's not really much going on around you, no wars or major events, so you don't really have anything to do. You hear that dozens of other people your age, probably just about all of your friends, are all hanging out at a palace having lots of fun all day. It just seems like pretty much anyone would go, if just to hang out with other people, not to try to marry Penelope. It seems like hanging out at Odysseus's is just kind of what people at that age do in Ithaca at that time.

I also that their overstaying their hospitality is greatly exaggerated as a crime. First of all, they were clearly welcome there at first. Odysseus had been away for years, Penelope was expected to take a new husband, and Telemachus didn't do anything about it. I would say that the fact that they stayed so long is Penelope's fault, since she keeps leading them on. She pretty much tells them "Just stay here for a while until I make my decision, I'm not ready yet," for years while actually trying to delay this decision. The suitors are in a very good situation; they're getting served, it's pretty much an endless party, and nobody's asking them to leave or seems to care. Some of them clearly want to exploit their hospitality, but I don't really think we can blame the ones who are just hanging out for not leaving. Some of them even want to leave once Telemachus begins taking charge and there are rumors that Odysseus is coming back, though the leaders keep them there.

As for the final accusation, their rudeness to the servants and others, I think that definitely has some truth. Though some are worse than others, we see in the scenes with Odysseus as a beggar that virtually none of them have any respect for people they see as lesser than them. This is definitely bad, but I think that, for many of the suitors, it's their only huge offense. And while this group should be punished for being mean, there's no way that they all deserve to be killed because of it.

The Strange Story of Eumaeus

In the readings for the past couple days, the character of Eumaeus has seemed really weird to me, and his history makes by far the least sense of any story in the Odyssey so far. He actually seems like a pretty nice guy in general when we first meet him. He's very kind and hospitable to Odysseus when he thinks he's a stranger, makes sacrifices to the gods, and is extremely loyal to the royal family of Ithaca. Just a normal, "loyal swineherd."

But when he tells us his backstory, his character begins to make absolutely no sense. He says that he was born the prince of another city, but a slave (his nurse) decided to take him with her as payment to some sailors for helping him escape. Laertes, Odysseus's father, bought him as a slave, and he was raised with Laertes's children, even being considered of equal status to Odysseus's sister. They then make him a swineherd when he grows up and, because of their kindness in raising him, he remains pretty good friends with them.

First of all, a lot of elements of the story just seem very strange. Eumaeus's nurse steals him for the sailors because he will apparently get a very high price when he's sold as a slave, for no reason other than he is a prince. Is there any particular advantage to having a prince as a slave? It seems like either whoever bought him wouldn't know/care, or, if they did know, would try to find out where he was from and return him to his parents. It's not clear whether or not Laertes knows, but even with him, it's strange that he raises a slave that he bought alongside his own children like he was one of them, and also that he bought a 2-year-old for no apparent purpose except to have him. Also, after raising him with his kids, Laertes just sends him out to be a normal swineherd, without giving him any special status or job even after he lived with them for years. It seems kind of weird to just throw him out to do some random manual labor job.

What makes even less sense is how Eumaeus reacts to all this. One would think that he'd be pretty unhappy that, although he's a prince and was raised along with Odysseus and his sister, they were able to get a lot of social status while he was just sent off to take care of some pigs. He seems to show absolutely no resentment towards Laertes for this decision or jealously of Odysseus for getting such a better position in life than him. He remains very admiring of both of them, as well as of Telemachus, who he has a sort of father/son relationship with (this also raises the question as to why Telemachus is apparently spending a fair amount of his time with someone who is, at least to him, a random swineherd). Eumaeus also makes absolutely no effort to go back to his home city, though it seems like he'd be free to do so. He knows what city it is/where to find it, so he would probably have thought at some point "Hey, if I go back there, I would be a prince and eventually the king, which seems a lot better than what I'm doing now." But instead of going and taking advantage of his royal blood, he stays right where he is, herding pigs. Something's definitely wrong there.