Odysseus Symbolism In The Odyssey

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Odysseus is commonly associated with a few different symbols, the first of these being the sea. This symbolism is summarized when Odysseus says, “‘We are Achaians coming from Troy, beaten off our true course by winds from every direction across the great gulf of the open sea, making for home, by the wrong way, on the wrong courses. So we have come. So it has pleased Zeus to arrange it’” (Homer, Odyssey 9.259-262). In many different types of mythology, the sea represents the gulf between the power of the gods and the power of humans. It shows the gods testing human capabilities by making the journey through the seas very difficult either by using strong winds, rough waves, or both. The sea also represents life as it is occasionally willing to send something good your way, it is full of suffering, and it is subject to angry gods (“The Sea in The Odyssey”).…show more content…
This is associated with Odysseus as it symbolizes kingship and masculinity. Odysseus is the only person out of all the suitors that is able to string the bow and shoot the arrow through twelve axe heads. When the suitors start to fail, Eurymachos, one of the suitors, says, “‘[…] it is not so much the marriage I grieve for […] it is the thought, if this is true, that we come so far short of godlike Odysseus in strength, so that we cannot even string his bow’” (Homer, Odyssey 21.250-25). This proves that no man unfit to be king would be able to string the bow and shoot the arrow, especially through twelve axe heads. Eurymachos is stating that he is grieving the thought that he is so much weaker than Odysseus, proving that he would not be a good person to rule Ithaca. The goddess Artemis and god Apollo are also commonly associated with the symbol of the bow and
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