Well, we made it. The grand finale, the big finish, the climax of Homer's entire Odyssey. And it's a bunch of unarmed people getting slaughtered inside a locked room.
Okay, they're not ALL unarmed by the end, but it still seems as if Odysseus steps a little out of line towards the end there. Killing in cold blood even those who begged for mercy, torturing Melanthius, and murdering all the "disloyal" women (after he forced them to carry their lovers' bodies out) does not seem especially heroic. It honestly seems more like something the villains of a story would do, or even something out of a horror movie. Even those who get a relatively good death, dying in combat with a weapon in their hand rather than cowering at your attacker's feet, are still cut down ignominiously. For instance, Amphinomous's death is described as glorious, but he is still stabbed from behind by Telemachus as he attempts to engage Odysseus. Those who don't even get that kind of "courtesy," like Antinous, are killed while they are unarmed, perhaps while they're barely aware they are even in danger.
Throughout the entire story, we have been continually preoccupied with perspective. When Odysseus was actually telling the story of his wanderings, we had to take his words with a grain of salt. He clearly was coloring his narrative to make himself look good, and undermine the validity of his opponents. Even now that the poem is again about him, I think there is still a great amount of bias in the telling of the story. Perhaps we need to take a moment to consider the other side of things.
Imagine things from the majority of the suitors' perspectives. Sure, for those ringleaders whose offenses were the most egregious, they couldn't really expect anything better from Odysseus coming home. But those who were already having their doubts, such as Amphinomous, really get kind of screwed over. After the first several deaths, the suitors offer to surrender, return home, and even send tribute back to Odysseus as reparations. But he refuses, and kills even those who beg for mercy. For the serving women he murders, all they did was make the best out of a bad situation, in what was probably a less than fortunate life to begin with.
It's always interesting to consider the perspectives of minor characters in any story, and can even be comedic at times. But in the Odyssey, many of these alternate perspectives give Odysseus an at best entitled and unreasonable appearance, and at worst make him almost the villain of a horror story.
I agree with your point. At a certain point, Odysseus really seems out of control. I'm not sure if he's really that "evil" that he would do such terrible actions towards the suitors and the maids, but I do think he sort of lost himself. After containing himself for so long, pretending to be a beggar, the sudden release of emotion probably really got to him.
ReplyDeleteI also think that when Antinous's father accusing Odysseus of killing his son, we really get to see Odysseus from a different perspective, and a really horrifying perspective.
I think if we consider Odysseus as a villain, it actually makes the story significantly better. For one, we are not used to seeing a villain actually succeed in committing atrocities like Odysseus clearly does in the slaughter scene. I would much rather have an intense, brutal villain than a mindlessly aggressive hero. While Odysseus was doing a decent job as the poem's hero, he lost it all when he begins killing unarmed suitors and innocent servants. If we could imagine him opposite of a real hero, Odysseus immediately becomes a much more sinister person.
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