The Formidable Foe Odysseus

Book 22 was a crazy book to read for me. It was expected, inevitable, but still upsetting. Instead of a hero mowing down fighting suitors in glorious combat like in some cartoon, I feel like it was more of a depiction of Odysseus striking down, one by one, defenseless, begging, miserable suitors in a fit of rage. Eurymachus is the very first to plead with him, offering wealth and loyalty, claiming to not even blame Odysseus for his rage. Odysseus kills him. Later, Leodes begs for mercy as well, expressing how he is an innocent suitor, not to be lumped in with the others. Odysseus kills him. Phemius then comes up to Odysseus and begs for mercy on the grounds that he's just a singer. Odysseus would have killed him in a heartbeat if it weren't for Telemachus' interjection only then telling him who he shouldn't be killing. Fairly rotten planning there, I guess.

Odysseus feels much more like a villain in this book than a hero. His boasting, all-or-nothing attitude, and merciless sword don't make him the most compelling of characters in this scene. He could have diffused the entire situation by exposing himself as Odysseus, perhaps killing the suitors that he truly felt deserved to die, and harshly threatening all of the rest. He's already a legend, a heroic story told to everyone about the fall of Troy, a formidable figure, not to mention a king. His threat would probably be worth quite a lot to these men. The death toll required to get Odysseus home is easily in the hundreds by this point.

The suitors did not have my sympathy, that much is for certain. But neither did Odysseus really by this point, and it was also the first time that I felt that Athena's help was really unnecessary. The battle was completely rigged and still Odysseus pretended numerous times that the suitors had some sort of other option. They suitors never really got a chance to defend their actions, which I would have actually been interested in reading.

Am I cutting the suitors too much slack? I feel like I kind of did that a bit in my last post. It's fun contemplating the other side of the fight, and this was certainly a very good chapter for it.

Sympathy for the Suiters

It's incredibly obvious that the suiters are painted to look like the bad guys as much as possible by Homer. From the very beginning they are depicted as incredibly abusive of Telemachus' hospitality, lounging around the palace doing nothing but eat and complain and plot murder. Later on, their cruelty extends to Odysseus himself, resorting to throwing things at him (disguised as the beggar) and they are painted as pure evil, no doubt to build suspense and anticipation for their impending deaths.

The hatred placed on them is so heavy-handed though, Homer may as well just say "Hey, look! These are the bad guys! Right here!" From a story-telling perspective, all the hatred for them is pretty great. It'll make the ending just that much more satisfying. Once the suiters are more closely examined, however, I feel like their fates may seem just a tad bit unfair. First and foremost, from a legal perspective, they really have every right to be there and capital punishment is, for the most part, unjustified. Penelope's husband has been missing for a whopping 20 years now, and there isn't a single person we've met so far who truly believes that he'll be returning. Alone, abuse of hospitality really isn't punishable by death. The suiters are there to form a political bond, and the moment that Penelope does that, presumably they will leave Telemachus and her alone.

They've been in an awkward limbo for quite some time now, and lounging around probably does seem like a viable option to them now. They don't just want to leave and accept Ithaca as being king-less, and at the same time, Penelope refuses to choose anybody. For at least the first part of the story, Telemachus has just been a doormat, so they really don't feel to threatened by him. The suiters feel that the kingdom is dysfunctional in its current state without a definite ruler and are just sorta rolling with that for the time being. Their agitation is somewhat justified in this regard.

In addition to all of this, the suiters aren't even completely under their own free will. Not once, but multiple times has Athena used her magical god-powers to intimidate them with Telemachus' larger-than-life form and in various instances she's even inspired them to say cruel things, throw things, and just generally be assholes in order to make Odysseus even more upset and prepared to slaughter them all.

Almost all of this was touched on in class today in one way or another, and is just something to think about while proceeding into books 21 and 22 (Oh man am I excited). I'm interested in other peoples' thoughts on whether or not the behavior of the suiters really justifies the inevitable deaths of every one of them. It's an interesting conundrum of morality (and possibly anger management).

Deus Ex Machina

Odysseus is a hero, this is pretty much a given. He is considered to be a heroic figure by literally everybody and that satisfies my idea of a hero pretty well. Nonetheless, he receives a huge amount of help from the gods, especially Athena, who has a tendency to protect him, guide him, and help him out at every twist and turn (Calypso's release of him, his survival of the shipwreck, his discovery of Nausicaa, protective mist, etc.) The big question is whether or not this detracts from his heroism.

A really big idea throughout The Odyssey is fate. All of the characters just accept that the gods will do what they want with the humans and that they have no influence over that. The gods are perceived to essentially be uncontrollable forces of nature, and so by extension, Odysseus is basically just having a whole lot of good luck by being helped by Athena so much. Still, it's fairly easy to understand divine intervention being considered "cheating" because the sole heroic trait that Odysseus has is how badly he wants to go home (although this is contested multiple places, but that's a whole separate blog post). If he makes it home without any struggle or adversity, he's hardly a hero at all.

However, it can certainly be argued that this "good luck" is more than outweighed by Poseidon's wrath. If this is the case, then I feel like Athena's constant deus ex machina doesn't matter so much anymore. After all, is Harry Potter no longer a hero just because his life is saved by his friends? Is Frodo Baggins no longer a hero because Sam was the one who forced him to give up the ring? The levels of adversity in all of these stories immensely justify the received help, and every character (even Odysseus to an extent) underwent a psychological transformation, granting them their heroism.

END HERO'S JOURNEY POSTS, BEGIN AFR. AM. LIT. POSTS

This blog has been recycled from one class to another, so this is the point where my posts on "The Hero's Journey" stop and my posts on African American literature begin. So stop scrolling.

The Dynamic of Racism in Beloved Compared with the Modern Day

Throughout the book, Sethe doesn't seem to experience a great deal of racism on a day to day basis. The oppression that she feels is almost entirely from her memories being kept alive. It's as though the racism will only disappear when the memories fade away. This reminds me a whole lot of the modern day, in a strange way. In contemporary society, racism is really only perpetuated because of the vivid memories (or perhaps the learned memories) of the past. It's like that really bizarre phrase that some people say where the surest way to eliminate racism is to collectively forget slavery. While I don't necessarily agree with this sentiment, Beloved seems to put an interesting spin on this idea.

Sethe seems to talk a lot about her "rememories" and how they can be shared between people and will never ever fade away. Isn't that something like what happens today? I feel like racism has definitely been on the decline since the times of slavery, and theoretically, one day it should just be pretty much nonexistent. Still, there are racists out there who are as such simply because it's somewhat of a generational or historical thing for their region or family. This is why Sethe feels the racial injustice and uncertainty about her future. Since the memory of oppression and racism is still very much alive for her, she knows that it must still exist relatively unrestricted in the real world.

The Art of Organized Graffiti

When I was much younger, my dad used to take me out to a lake near our house where we would walk our dog or go on bike rides. Just before the main path though, we'd always pass a railroad bridge with some of the most elaborate graffiti I'd ever seen before. One day as we were traveling by it, my dad stopped and said to me something along the lines of, "We've got some real artists around here." That was the first time I ever remember anybody using the word "art" in the context of graffiti, and I don't think I had really regarded it as such before. It made me think though, graffiti was just a form of paint on a canvas, so why not?

I really enjoyed seeing Style Wars. A lot. I knew almost nothing about graffiti culture walking into that classroom, and the movie/documentary really gave me something to think about. One of the aspects of the movie that struck me most was just how comparatively mature the kids doing the graffiti were. I suppose there had always been this nagging spot in my mind that kept telling me that graffiti is vandalism and vandalism is for bored, immature kids. The people depicted in this movie, although not necessarily "cultured" or well-off, seemed to do a great job of sticking together as a community, helping each other out, and fending for themselves out there.

The artists really did remind me of an expansive community of people, and they were. The level of organization that took place throughout the entire movie was really interesting to me, and not necessarily something I would have expected. I always thought of graffiti of just sort of appearing like magic, but these guys spend hours and hours and hours planning it all and making it just perfect, only to have it scrawled over by some opposing graffiti group or scrubbed clean by the mayor. That takes serious dedication. The whole thing really has given me a whole new perspective on and appreciation for the art of graffiti.

Generations of Hatred

The poem Night, Death, Mississippi by Robert Hayden that Louis read for us a little while ago really stuck out to me at the time. It's easily one of the most horrific poems that we've read so far this year, and the implications of it really are heartbreaking. The poem is told from the perspective of an elderly KKK member who's too old to continue to do what he loves, so he helps out and supports his grandson, "Boy." Everywhere I look in the modern day, I can spot instances of antipathy between younger generations and older generations, mainly doe to progressive social change making the world a better place (at least from my perspective, I suppose). That's clearly not happening in this poem. The grandfather is proud of the son for doing things exactly the same way that he did. No change whatsoever is occurring here, just generations of perpetuated racism.

Social Awareness and Stereotypes

Gunnar is probably the most socially-aware person in the entire book. Throughout the entire book, he's constantly seeing the subtly unjust social dynamics at play. During the Shakespeare scene where Nicholas messes up his monologue, Gunnar can see that this is exactly what the audience had expected of the black kids from Hillside performing Shakespeare. In response to this, he goes up on stage and calls them all out in order to draw a large amount of negative attention to it. Later on, he does the exact same thing on the basketball court by dressing up as a minstrel in order to make the performance aspect of the whole game blatantly obvious to them.

He makes his marks in very clever ways. When he notices somebody, especially himself, conforming to an unfair stereotype, he'll always call it out instead of just rolling with it. I think that it's a very good lesson to learn from Gunnar. It reminds me of the Narrator's thoughts in Invisible Man where he wonders if it really is or isn't rude for the white man to ask him to sing for them. Everybody should be themselves, regardless of whether they're conforming or not conforming to a particular stereotype, so long as they're still aware of it.