Theme Of Justice In The Odyssey

This passage is short and yet very telling of the way Ancient Greeks may have understood proper government and democracy to be. As the cultural cradle of Western civilization, the Greeks were often considered to be among the early creators of civil order and arts. With this came the concepts of justice and fairness, and the idea of a social contract of sorts. Justice is also one of the prominent themes highlighted in The Odyssey, and complements the previous theory of a judicial system or a ruling structure. Homeric literature was so widespread and popular, it went so far as to be deemed wholly troublesome by philosopher Plato. It was interesting to see that social philosophers were taken aback by the behavior of the gods depicted in the text,

It is curious to see that Gogol did not choose to focus on all the difficulties and hardships which inevitably stall the hero, and chooses instead to simplify the text – arguably losing its entire message. He fixates on the idea of “home,” and focuses less on the journey and more on the process of redefining “home.” Thus, home at different times and places mean different things to different types of hero. For quintessential hero Odysseus, home was Ithaca, the place of his wife and son. For Gogol, home was an understanding – a place where certain cultural and social values ruled. The youth generation of Russia had veered off course for long enough. Similar to Homer, the journey home was arduous, difficult, and at times, seemingly impossible. Homer took years to be at home again. Similarly, Gogol wonders how long it will take for the youth to find their way back to his ideal homeland. It is more metaphorical in Gogol’s understanding, and this is evident in a piece of literature he creates entitled Vij. In this text, he revisits (yet again) the notion of finding a path home. There are many more parallels between Homer’s, Zukovskij 's, and Gogol’s versions of The Odyssey, but the glaring similarity is this burning and forceful desire to find home, and that home is a fluid impression which is subject to constant

Finally, in the interest of a more globalectic understanding of the text, yet another method of adaptation is the contemporary importing of Homer’s classic and application to a children’s television channel. Disney Channel’s DuckTales, a hugely popular animated show in the late 1980s, took aired a loose and highly simplified remake of the classic, making it kid-friendly and morally educational. In the age of meaningful television programming, children’s television was still relatively young as producers were still getting accustomed to which themes and values appealed to various age groups. In episode 22 of the first season of DuckTales ‘Home Sweet Homer,’ heroes Scrooge McDuck and his young nephews are mistakenly transported back in time and meet Homer, a stranded man trying to find his way home to Ithaquack (of course, liberties had to be made to better fit the storyline). Homer must battle his way through a series of obstacles with his newfound guides to find his love, captured by the evil Circe. The cartoon follows a typical progression one would expect from a children’s TV show: the heroes are courageous, resourceful, and “good” through and through. The “bad guy” is evil, irredeemable, and falls flat as a static character. The purpose of the show, however, is not necessarily to showcase the makings of a fully developed literary character – rather, it rehashes the notion of the journey and coming into one’s own. It is the quintessential bildungsroman, shrunk to