Sunday, September 7, 2014
Love At First Curse
In Book 10 of The Odyssey, Odysseus and friends end up on the island of Aeaea (Pronounced A-E-uh). From there some of his men are turned to pigs by this witch named Circe. So we automatically hate her. Hermes rolls up and basically says"The only way to stop her is to act like you're gonna have sex. Then, BAM! Hit her with this poison. And also heres the stuff so you don't become a pig." So Odysseus strolls in and asks for his people. She tries to transform but she fails. She thinks this is hot or something and asks for him to have sex. Odysseus says yes and is about to do the deed when he basically has a meltdown and is crying and stuff. Now, I was very confused because I thought Odysseus was supposed to be all manly but this was totally not cool. Circe finds pity and basically falls for him and Odysseus doesn't need to use the poison. I feel like Odysseus should not have just disregarded a god and got this crazy witch to fall in love with him. It just seems very strange but it may get sorted out in later books.
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I haven't read Book 10 but the amount of crying the Odyssey includes is kind of interesting -- Telemachus breaks down in his speech, Menelaus starts crying when he's telling a story, and then what you described. Like you said, it seems like they should be "manlier" -- it seems like it was a bit more acceptable back then, but maybe the Odyssey characters are just particularly emotional.
ReplyDeleteCrying is how you let out your emotions. If you keep them all bottled up inside of you, it makes you weaker. That is why Odysseus is so strong; he doesn't carry around the weight of his sadness, he leaves it all behind him hidden in his tears.
ReplyDeleteRadical dude! I really appreciate this summary of what happens in Book 10. I recently read it and found that it was somewhat confusing, so this retelling of Book 10 in a more modern lingo helped clear up some of the problems I was having. Specifically I had no clue as to how Aeaea was pronounced, but your post cleared it right up. Also, I agree with Adina that the the Odyssey's characters are particularly emotional, with all the crying and such. I really hope this turns around because I don't want this to make me cry too!
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting point about how Odysseus is suppose to be a brave hero, however throughout the story we see him and Telemachus having emotional break downs. I also find it confusing that during this time period, showing your emotions is suppose to be a "women trait," but we see our main male heroes cry way more throughout the book than our women characters so I don't really find this stereotype valid in this novel so far.
ReplyDeleteIt is odd to me also. I would think that this would be one of the first texts to show this in full form but apparently I was wrong...
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