Wednesday, September 8, 2010
An Odyssey's End
The conclusion of the Odyssey is not what I expected it to be. Everything is restored to order sure, but what about the paddle and the final journey Odysseus must take? Also what about the divine intervention that just soothes away all of Odysseus' newly found concerns? Is the end satisfying to you? Do you think that it could have been ended differently? If you do, how? Or if not, why do you think that the ending is appropriate?
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Hmmmm. I remember reading about this in the essay at the beginning of the book and wondering why that person felt so unsatisfied. Now that I've read the book.....I know. I don't know if I would call the ending completely unsatisfying, but I do feel that the divine intervention was a bit anticlimactic. There was all this crazy build up and talk of honor because Odysseus, his son, and his father were all going to fight together. Three generations aaah it's beautiful! And then....Athena was just like no! and it ended very suddenly. It wasn't the worst ending, but I do feel the abruptness of the ending didn't allow for a ton of closure.
My problem is that I'm a terrible writer. I have no mind for weaving tales......Due to this I think I'm completely incapable of coming up with a more satisfactory ending. Thousands of young Athenian men were slaughtered by Odysseus. Not something you can make go away easily. There's obviously going to be tons of families who hate Odysseus and want to kill him. Gods wiping peoples slates clean seems like the only easy way out. Reasoning with all those people would never work, you can't hide the deaths of that many people.....I've got nothing. I have no idea how the story could've ended.
I think that the ending was satisfying. I mean, Odysseus was away from his home for like 20 years, missed his son's childhood, and was without his soul mate. I think that Odysseus deserved somewhat of an easy ending after encountering near death experiences again and again. I wouldn't call the ending necessary anticlimactic either, he did have to kill all of those suitors pretty much single handedly. So overall I sympathize with Odysseus and his situation and I think the ending was just.
I didn't hate the ending, I mean happy endings are what everyone wants, but I felt like the whole book was drug out for such a long time, and then it just ended. I didn't like that aspect of it and I agree, I was ready for some huge fight scene to tie the whole story together and end it nicely. However, I am happy with the ending and it was supposed to be like real life for the Greeks, so maybe a huge fight scene would not have sat so well with ancient society. Or, they really wanted to believe in divine intervention, and that was one of the last lessons to be learned from this story.
I agree with Ele in sympathizing with Odysseus because of his journey and all of the obstacles that kept him away from his wife and son, but the ending was still somewhat unsatisfying because it just ended all of a sudden and everything was fine. I mostly disagree with it because it's not very realistic. It all seems too good be true at the end because Athena intervenes and makes everyone forget about their sons. I can't really think of a better ending off the top of my head but it seems like no one in the town would want to challenge Odysseus after he took on thousands of men and successfully took them out.
Also since Athena just waltzes in and makes everything okay somewhat ruined the story because if she did it at the end, why didn't she just do it from the beginning? And yes, I know the response to that is because then there wouldn't be a book, but still.
For me, the ending of The Odyssey was not completely satisfying. I mean, Odysseus had twenty years of trials and hardships to overcome trying to get back to his family, and the divine intervention was pretty anticlimactic. I do like happy endings, but I think this one was a little too convenient and sudden to be realistic. I agree with Bridget. If Athena could make it that easy for those families to forget their sons, then she probably could have made Odysseus' trip home much quicker and easier.That being said, I don't think I could come up with another ending, at least not a happy one. I have to admit, without Athena, the families and Odysseus would have fought to the death, which obviously could only end in one of two ways. Still, I can't help feeling that the ending was a little bit of a let down.
I agree that the ending was slightly disappointing, but Homer was caught between a rock and a hard place.
He needed the idea of the suitors' families being upset, or his ending would become illogical and unrealistic. But how do you solve this problem? There were too many enemies for him to overcome, and our hero simply could not be killed after all he has gone through(for Pete's sake, we had to go through it as well!!).
In addition, do we really want to keep reading for hundreds of pages longer to finally find satisfaction? Some may say yes, but I will admit I would rather not. I suppose that Homer chose the simplest way to conclude his book, and Athena's intervention paralleled the rest of the book. She had prevented Odysseus' death thus far, and there was only one more way to prevent it from inevitably happening under these circumstances. I would have concluded the book as Homer did, and accepted that it was the best option.
I don't see why it needs to be realistic. I mean, how realistic has the rest of the book been?
When I finished reading The Odyssey, I felt like, "That's it?" But then, there really isn't another way to end the book. After restoring order to his home, Odysseus must restore order to his society. If the gods let the families of the slaughtered suitors actually seek revenge, the result would either be all of the families dead, or Odysseus's family dead. Back to the lovely topic of reveng back in Odysseus's day, I don't think the families would have just demanded monetary payment. They were out for blood, so if the gods did not soothe things over, either Odysseus would have had a violent death, or most of his people would be dead, and both end results would have made Ithaca vulnerable to attack by other peoples.
As a reader, I do wish for a more exciting, closure-providing ending as opposed to the gods just swooping in and saying "That's all, folks." But I really don't see any other way this epic could have ended, and so I do think it was approriate.
Well, an interestind ending might have been if the suitor's families came and fought odyseus and he and his son and father had to fight them all off and won. However, that is almost as unrealistic as the families forgetting they even had those sons, so I don't think there was another way it could have ended.
I really like all the answers thus far, and it's nice to know that some people were at least partially unsatisfied like me. I definitely feel like Homer dragged the second half of the book on for so long that a few more chapters would have been like torture, but the abruptness of the end did take me by surprise. I can't really think of a fool proof way to end it better either, other than an epic fight or a quick escape on Odysseus' part, but after all he's endured it does seem a little cruel. I guess I wish that there had been one more chapter where Odysseus goes on the paddle journey and fades off into the afterlife after having lived a peaceful and prosperous life back on Ithaca. I also think a great funeral would have been nice and then the final scene could have been Telemachus ruling over his father's house.
Athena's intervention is for the best I suppose, but I don't think it would have been much more unrealistic if Athena said no more bloodshed or the gods will strike you down and then Odysseus could have made some kind of monetary restitution. The particularly persistent and angry families could be made to forget, but I still think it's unsatisfying that no one remembers except Odysseus and his household. The feat was somewhat legendary after all, but then again maybe Odysseus needs to be humble once in awhile.
Veronica, great point! Even Odysseus does need to be humble once in a while :)
While the Odyssey could have been ended any number of ways, I think that its conclusion would have been satisfactory to its intended audience. The ancient Greeks probably wouldn't have had the kind of questions and complaints about it that we do. I for one am sitting here going "Homer, I see what you did there, retconning everything to get Odysseus out of that corner you wrote him into!" But, then again, I guess we should be glad that Homer didn't just have all the suitors' families going "oh, if Odysseus did it then it's okay."
No one's talked about the paddle quest yet! I thought that it was pretty awesome, actually. Here's Odysseus, this famous hero and man of action-- now that he's back home, is he just going to sit around and be prosperous the rest of his days? Personally, I think it's not in his nature, and he'd get bored. I think it's really fitting that he gets one last quest to guarantee that he has a peaceful death. Too bad we don't get to see it.
I'm not going to lie, I love me some tragedy. The story has the perfect set up for it to. We have the plot of struggle for a good individual who made a really big mistake, and we have a whole bunch of people who love and depend on him. Odysseus shouldn't be saved by some sort of deus ex machina, he should be further destroyed by himself. In fact, I think his problems should be further compounded for that whole catharsis to work its magic.
Here is how it should have ended, Odysseus returns for some revenge, the story makes it clear that this is no longer wise and kind Odysseus, but cunning and hardened from 20 years away. He seeks Telemachus to help him kill the suitors. The whole thing happens with the axe rings, Telemachus and Odysseus start killing suitors, but in his inexperience Telemachus is wounded. As he treats his son's wound, the women slaves tell everyone what happens, they all come, kill Odysseus, rape Penelope, and leave Telemachus to die, but he lived a good life, so Athena ends up happy with it all, as well as Poseidon, party in the sky.
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