Examples Of Irony In The Odyssey

Over 2,000 years ago an epic poem, The Odyssey, was written. Despite its age, the epic poem is still mentioned today. Odysseus, after conquering the City of Troy, in the Trojan war, wanders through the waters of Greece until he sails ashore his homeland of Ithaca. On his treacherous journey home, his men are distracted by the Lotus Eaters, and almost swallowed by a whirpool. Timeless elements in The Odyssey make it perpetual, even thousands of years after it was depicted.

Homer makes the Odyssey perpetual through the addition of irony. In The Odyssey, Odysseus tries to return home after winning the Trojan War. In most stories, the main character is on a journey to another place, so therefore Odysseus’s journey home is ironic. Another example

Odysseus, as he approaches Scylla, accounts her intake of water: “When she swallowed the sea water down we saw the funnel of the maelstrom,” (396). Scylla, the swallows the water and creates a maelstrom, a whirlpool, to swallow Odysseus’s ship. Odysseus maneuvers away from her but Scylla snatches 4 of his men. Scylla, after being outsmarted, spews out her swallowed water: “When she vomited all the sea was like a cauldron seething over intense fire,” (396). Water in cauldrons over fire boils, meaning it constantly has bubbles rising to the surface which causes the water to become very choppy. After Scylla regurgitated the water, the sea became very choppy and difficult to navigate. In 1945, a squadron of airplanes took off from Florida on a training mission. When they returned, their twelve airplane fleet only consisted of seven planes. A rescue plane sent to find them also vanished. These mysterious disappearances began to shape the myth of the Bermuda Triangle. People were enticed by these dissipations because they are interested in perilous myths of the sea. Through the addition of mythical dangers of the sea, Homer achieves the task of making his epic poem a timeless

Odysseus, after winning the Trojan war, encounters a Cyclops and is banished to the sea “never to see his home again” (384 Homer). Against the son of Poseidon, he backtracks through the waters of Greece, on his treacherous journey home. Odysseus only had one motive to continue his trek back home to Ithaca: “he fought only to save his life and bring his shipmates home” (371 Homer). Through all of his struggles, whether it be a whirlpool, Cyclops, Lotus Eater, or Siren, Odysseus pushed through to save his life and to brings his shipmates home. A timeless classic, The Wizard of Oz, also shares this element with The Odyssey. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her dog Toto, voyage through the land of Oz, so they can return home, just as Odysseus voyages through the seas to return home to Ithaca. A plot centered around a journey is an element used to make all stories