Wandering of Central Characters in Odyssey & Ulysses
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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 far more compressed than Ulysses, which ranges far and wide in style and content and takes far longer to resolve than The Odyssey.Both Bloom and Odysseus have a comrade in a portion of their travels. For Odysseus it is his grown son Telemachos, who attempts without success to drive Penelope's suitors away (II.135-45) and then sets sail in search of his father and in hope of finding a way to drive the suitors from Penelope's door. In The Odyssey, Odysseus and Telemachos meet when Telemachos returns to Ithaka from
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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 Odysseus. She justifies her testing his knowledge of how the bed was constructed by saying that she, who had loved Odysseus in their youth, had feared being seduced by men "who scheme for wicked advantage" (XXIII.217). In other words Penelope was determined to remain constant to her husband, determined not
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3134
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)
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