Divine Intervention In The Odyssey

Many people rely on a sense of linear time, oftentimes looking at life as a timeline of early years, middle years, and then eventual death. To deal with this, many may make to-do lists and attempt to “manage time”. This sense of time is known as chronos, named after a Greek titan who was overthrown by his father and cast into Tartarus, a prison for titans, where he still ticks. One is always able to feel the effects of the ticking clock, and time may feel like a burden. Despite this linear understanding of time, the Greeks understood that life is not a rut, and thus developed a different sense of time known as kairos. Kairos is the interruption to the slavery of linear time. These indeterminate moments of time occur when a wonderful, significant event happens in one’s life,

In Greek Mythology, the gods would commonly interact with humanity firsthand. Many times the gods would help the hero on his quest, such as Athena helping Telemachus in the Greek epic poem, Homer’s The Odyssey. Divine intervention was that which would oftentimes determine the fate of humanity. Because none of the gods intervene before Antigone’s tragic death, she feels as though the gods have forsaken her, along with the cause she fought for. Because she loses what she thought was the natural moral law she followed, all she is left with is the love she has for her family in the underworld. This event truly strips her down to all she has left: her family. The only thing that serves her until the end is the love of her family. She gave up everything for Polynices, and clearly showed how much she loved him by sacrificing her life. If she never felt that the gods abandoned her, she never would have realized how strong faithful the love for her family is. Because she cannot stand to live in the agony of the cave anymore, she takes her own life in order to join her family in the