Destiny, Fate and Free Will in Homers Odyssey - Guidance and Loyalty E

Guidance, Fate, and Loyalty in The Odyssey   The Odyssey is an epic meter roughly a journey. After the Trojan War is won Odysseus leaves Troy for his family in Ithaca. However, the gods decide to test his courage and resolve and send him on a twenty-year odyssey. Odysseus courage is constantly tested as he struggles with the umpteen obstacles the gods place before him. Although Homer depicted The Odyssey as a sovereign journey, in reality the gods and other mortals guide Odysseus. It is his loyalty to and his love for his family that keeps him going. The Odyssey depicts Odysseus as he overcomes each obstacle through guidance, fate, and loyalty to his family.       To Odysseus loyalty is the more or less important quality. He expects his family and friends to be loyal. He especially expects loyalty from his married woman Penelope. Odysseus talks to Penelope disguised as an old man, and as the snow melts on the lofty mountains, when Eurus melts what Zephryru s has scattered, and at its melting flowing rivers fill so did her fair cheeks melt with flowing tears, as she bewailed the husband who was seated by her side (187). Odysseus doesnt reveal himself even though he pities his sobbing wife because he knows she wouldnt be able to conceal her love for him in confront of all her suitors. This touch of dramatic irony helps the reader sympathize with the struggles of Odysseus wife.       Odysseus demonstrates his loyal to Penelope during his stay with the Phaeacians. Even with Nausicaa by Odysseus side because she likes him, he save stays loyal to Penelope. As the Phaeacian woman watch Odysseus as he starts to bathe he says, Women, stand here aside, while by myself I wash the salt from off my back... ... in the sunlight he is. Odysseus is guide by the Phaeacians as he sleeps and due to his sleep misses important elements. Since Odysseus is fast asleep(predicate) a sense of dramatic irony is shown because the reader know s something that the Odysseus doesnt.       Homers epic poem The Odyssey tells the tommyrots of Odysseus, a man who has an epic journey through life. He overcomes the struggles and conflicts of life through three main elements loyalty to and from his family, fate, and guidance. Loyalty to his family and from his family helps him long to begin it home. The gods determine his fate and by overcoming the struggles and conflicts of life he is able to bring through his fate. Lastly guidance by the immortals and mortals helped Odysseus eventually make it home to Ithaca. Odysseus tale is one that covers only a portion of his life, but seems like a lifetime.