Homer's Odyssey & Joyce's Ulysses

The purpose of this research is to examine the central character's attempt to reconcile the domestic affairs of his household in The Odyssey of Homer and James Joyce's Ulysses. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the actions of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses and Odysseus in The Odyssey occur in this connection and then to discuss the means by which the unfolding narratives in the respective stories demonstrate Bloom's an Odysseus's strategies for seizing control of their emotional lives.

The action of both The Odyssey and Ulysses involve the wandering from home of the central characters, although the wandering assumes a different shape in each story. In The Odyssey, Odysseus travels by an extremely indirect route back to home and hearth where faithful and patient Penelope awaits him and where he kills all the suitors who have been courting her in his absence. The journey takes ten years. In Ulysses, Bloom departs from and returns home within the space of one day. Waiting for him is his wife Molly, who has been unfaithful to him from time to time, with Blazes Boylan, a concert promoter (Joyce 76-77). The narrative action of both The Odyssey and Ulysses contains much digression. Whereas The Odyssey describes Odysseus's wanderings from Troy to Ithaka throughout the various islands and shores of the Mediterranean over ten years, Ulysses describes Bloom's wanderings around Dublin in the course of just one day. Yet as a narrative structure, The Odyssey is f

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hat the suitors "were destroyed by the doom of the gods and their own hard actions, / . . . by their own recklessness they have found a shameful death" (XXII.413-5). The deception associated with Odysseus's killing of "the finest / young men in Ithaka" (XXIII.121-2) is employed as a means of giving him an opportunity to consolidate his leadership position with the people in the area. He anticipates having to defend his position, and he counsels Telemachos to "consider" that fact and keep the slaughters a secret, later also counseling Penelope to keep to her room when "a rumor / about the men who courted you, whom I killed in our palace" (XXIII.362-3). "Thoughtful" Telemachos does "consider," which is why when the suitors' kinsfolk attack Odysseus, he, his household, and his serfs are prepared for battle, and well positioned when Athene interferes in Odysseus's behalf, counseling the Ithakans to reconcile with him. Meanwhile, he expects unqualified obeisance from home and family and reproaches "circumspect" Penelope for not rushing to him with open arms the moment he tells her who he is; he does fall into Penelope's stratagem about their bed in revealing himself to her. It is as if only circumspect Penelope can outthink crafty Ody

Category: Literature - H