We’ve discussed a lot to what extent we think Odysseus is a
reliable narrator. The main piece of evidence for his reliability is that he
includes details about the way he treated his crew that reflect badly on him.
Today in class I suggested that he could include these details to make lies
seem more realistic and someone suggested that Odysseus probably just truly feels
bad about his men’s deaths. But that started me thinking about the weird dynamic
of Odysseus’s relationship with his crew so I looked back in the book to see
how he talks about his men and their deaths.
I presented on book eleven, so I immediately thought of
Elpenor. Elpenor certainly seems important to Odysseus since Odysseus mentions
him three times: when he first died, when he’s in the underworld, and when he’s
actually buried. Odysseus’s attention to Elpenor both in burying him with all
the proper rituals and in describing his death in detail in his story shows that
Odysseus has some level of affection for him. On the other hand, although Odysseus
frequently shows extreme emotion, he describes Elpenor’s death very
matter-of-factly and when he meets Elpenor in Hades, Odysseus responds to
Elpenor’s 21 lines with “’Poor man! […] I will do all this’” (11.80). In
comparison, when he sees Agamemnon, Odysseus says “I wept and my heart pitied
him” (11.396). Especially since he doesn’t tell the Phaeacians anything about
Elpenor’s life, Odysseus could be mentioning Elpenor just to show that he cares
about his men before he tells the Phaeacians about how his entire crew dies.
Odysseus’s emotional reactions to other deaths of
crewmembers is somewhat varied but generally not very extreme. He describes
Scylla eating six men very emotionally as “the most heartrending sight I saw / in
all the time I suffered at sea” (12.258-259). But it’s unclear to what extent
Odysseus’s emotion is a result of the deaths and to what extent it’s the
gruesome nature of their deaths since he describes how the men were “still
screaming, / still reaching out to me in their death throes” (12.256-257). Odysseus is relatively chill when he finds out
that his men ate Helios’s cattle:
[…] the meaty smell of cooking
enfolded me. I groaned, and told
the gods,
‘O Zeus, and all you deathless
gods! You blinded
my mind with that infernal sleep.
My men
did dreadful things while I was
gone.’ (12.368-372)
Groaning seems like more an act of frustration than of grief
that his men are now condemned to death. When he describes the storm that
actually kills the rest of his crew, Odysseus shows no emotion: “All the men /
fell overboard, and they were swept away / like seagulls on the waves beside
the ship. / The gods prevented them from reaching home.” (12.415-418).
I don’t think that Odysseus’s lack of emotion towards his
men shows that he doesn’t care about them. We do see him try to protect them,
for example when he asks Circe repeatedly whether there is any way he can avoid
Scylla and when he tries to stop them from eating Helios’s cattle. I also don’t
think it necessarily shows that Odysseus doesn’t feel guilty about their
deaths. But I do think, when compared to the emotion Odysseus expresses feeling
about other heroes, it shows something interesting about class dynamics in
ancient Greek society.
Generally, though, I’m confused about the class structure
Odysseus is dealing with. It seems like there are kings/queens/heroes at the
top, then some middle category, then slaves. The middle category seems to
include nobles, the suitors, and Odysseus’s crew. Or are his crewmembers
slaves? Also Eumaeus hopes to be freed so there must be a category of other
free people? Is that what the crewmembers are? Is that what the suitors are or
are they nobles? And why is Odysseus treated like nobility when he arrives
without any belongings in Phaeacia but stays with the slaves in Ithaca? I think
if I understood this better, I could understand Odysseus’s relationship to his
crew better.
Cool post! While I was reading and listening to the presentations something really struck me about how Odysseus lied practically without thinking about it. It really reminded me of a pathological liar which really made me question the validity of his story.
ReplyDeleteIt also struck me that so many people died in The Odyssey, and most of them were not missed. I thought that Odysseus's concern for his crew was more due to the fact that he needed them to get home than sympathy for them. I agree that it would be nice to know more about the social classes of all the various people, which could describe whether or not Odysseus is "supposed" to care about his crew as people or not.
ReplyDeleteYah Odysseus lost an awful lot of his crew in some pretty awful/graphic ways at times, but didn't seem to care all that much. An argument could be made that he didn't have time to really mourn their deaths or that he felt bad on the inside, but I have the sneaking suspicion that the latter isn't the case. Odysseus was very "matter-of-fact" in the way he talked about his crew's deaths in most cases, basically saying "yah they died in this way, and it kinda sucked, but oh well."
ReplyDeleteI also question Odysseus' reliability. However, could deaths caused directly by the gods elicit less emotion from Odysseus since they are out of his control? I can see him being incredibly upset if there was something he could have done to keep them alive, but if it were because of the gods he would probably just say "it really do be like that sometimes."
ReplyDeleteI think that Odysseus is more comfortable with death than we as readers are. He's a veteran of the Trojan war, and we know that he lost friends to that war. As you pointed out, he does try to avoid unnecessary loss of life, but he also knows that people die. However, given how emotional he gets hearing about his own suffering from the bard in Phaecia, he should really have more of a reaction talking about all the men that have died under his command than just "they died and that happened."
ReplyDeleteI think that Odysseus did care for his men, but he knew that death is a thing that happens and his time in the Trojan war has made him more accepting of death. it also could be possible that in his time away he has come to terms with the loss of his men and it no longer is as painful so when he was recounting the story he doesn't feel as much emotion as he did when they died in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAthena made him look like a slave so he wouldn't immediately be recognized, hence why he was treated like a slave. Meanwhile, the Phaecians didn't know him, but were just oozing with xenia and soon impressed by his storytelling. Greek society was definitely heavily governed by class structure, and there were a lot of minutely different classes. I think another really valuable hierarchy is that of gods/humans. There are humans who are higher and humans who are lower, but ultimately they're all playthings of the gods.
ReplyDeleteLike Sam, I think he cared for his men, but was also exposed to a lot of death. I mean, being a Greek soldier had to have a pretty high mortality rate, and it was just kind of harder to be alive back then. Not that people didn't grieve -- we see many examples of that -- but it may have been seen as a more natural part of life.
You brought up an interesting point about how Odysseus could be using Elpenor's death as a way to show he cares about his crew. I think that it's possible, especially with what you brought up about his other reactions that were fairly emotionless, since we have seen hi emotions in other scenes. For example when Demodocus is singing the stories, Odysseus breaks down crying. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the class structure consists of kings at the top that govern the city-states that dominated Greece, then the other nobles below him (the suitors are their sons) then the peasants which are the "free people" that the slave wanted to become, then the slaves slightly below them. Odysseus' men are either sons of nobles, high peasants, and probably a lot of slaves that aren't considered his "crew" but just there.
ReplyDeleteI think it's mentioned that the crew consists of "good men," so probably free, middle class
ReplyDeletepeople. I don't think Odysseus treats them with the respect they deserve however, as he doesn't seem to try very hard to prevent their deaths. This could be because he doesn't consider them to be his equal, since he's at the top of the social hierarchy.
I think Odysseus does care about his men, but it's contrasted with his desperate desire to get home to Penelope at any cost. For example, when they approach Scylla, he does his best to avoid it (trying to protect his men), but he doesn't warn them, so only he is armed (protecting himself). I suppose it's debatable how noble that goal is - he's putting himself first, but only to help someone else ... ? IDK, morally questionable.
ReplyDeleteOne specific comment: I think when Wilson translates "groan," it should be interpreted as a stronger word. Today, we use groan for annoyance a lot, but I know in the Bible, for example, it uses groan to describe grief or actual pain. I'm not sure exactly how those lines should be interpreted.