What is the purpose of a quest? We see people going on quests everyday in the news, at school, even in the books we read. Every human has gone on at least one quest in their lives, but why do we do it? What is the purpose? What do we get out of it? The answer to these questions can only be answered by ourselves. But sometimes, we can figure out why other people go on quests and what they learn from them by reading their own story. In the epic The Odyssey by Homer, the main hero of the story, Odysseus, leaves Troy to go back home to Ithaca to see his family and to stop the suitors that have placed themselves in his house, although there are many challenges he faces. In the poem The Journey by Mary Oliver, the speaker of the poem, instead of trying to go back home …show more content…
In The Journey, the speaker, while trying to be free, is getting held back by the people around him, urging him to stay and help them. The speaker is also trying to get past the physical obstacles he encounters on his journey. The use of detail, dialogue, and setting can be seen clearly in these two passages. Therefore, the authors use detail, dialogue, and setting to convey that people embark upon quests to achieve specific goals, and they learn that they shouldn’t let obstacles interfere with their goals. In The Odyssey, Homer uses detail and dialogue to show that Odysseus, the quester, while trying to achieve his main goal to get back home, learns that he shouldn’t let obstacles interfere with him. In the beginning of The Odyssey, we first hear Homer, the author of the epic, speaking towards us, the reader. He asks that Muse, a daughter of Zeus, enable him to tell the story of Odysseus. He says that he was “the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy” (Homer 371). He continues speaking, and he eventually says why Odysseus is