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Villains And Revenge In Homer's Odyssey

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Villains and Revenge

The Archetype Villains and Revenge is a description of people who become evil because of something that happened in their childhood or throughout their lives. These villains are only acting evil to get revenge on those who were cruel to them. This archetype is evident in the Odyssey when Poseidon, god of the sea, becomes a villain by disrupting Odysseus’ journey home. He delays Odysseus’ voyage to his homeland by years, and kills his entire crew. He makes Odysseus suffer many hardships and makes him miss his family more and more everyday. Poseidon has a reason to act this way though; in his journeys, the great Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son. Poseidon was full of rage and sympathy for his son to be treated this way. He …show more content…

One book this archetype is in is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm K. Grimm. In this famous fairytale, Snow White has a stepmother that has always been the “loveliest in the land”. The stepmother becomes outraged and jealous when her mirror on the wall tells her that Snow White is the loveliest in the land, and not her. She immediately turns into a villain by plotting to kill the princess. She sends a servant to take her deep into the woods and kill her, but he fails. So she dresses up as a little old lady and gives Snow White a poisoned apple, leaving her lifeless. The stepmother does this out of jealousy, for she, the queen must be the loveliest, not Snow White. She feels threatened, and wants to get revenge on Snow White for stealing her spot as the “loveliest in the land”.

Many poets write about villains getting revenge, one of which is Nathan Stobbs, who wrote the poem Two Faced. In this poem a man tells of how he is viewed as a villain for things he did; even though, like poseidon, he was doing them for a greater good. “I am the unsung hero Nobody knows the battle I have to fight”(line 14); he is the unsung hero because he could have been getting revenge for his son like poseidon did, he is trying to do what he believes is right to get even. The man only becomes a villain when he gets his revenge, he is viewed this way “Because only the evil comes to the light” (line

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Odysseus the Brave Hero In Homer's “The Odyssey”, the protagonist, Odysseus is fighting in the 10 year war against Troy. They win the war and now he and his men are trying to get back to their home, Ithaca. He angers the god of the sea, Poseidon, and now he has a god as an enemy. Poseidon sends waves after waves blowing him and his crew to islands, each having a conflict like monsters and goddesses.

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The Cyclops then cursed Odysseus and the men to Poseidon, making their journey home even more difficult. Another example was when the ship was about to go through the Sirens and Odysseus convinced them to leave his ears uncovered. Everyone,

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Snow White 's perception(28) and selection(28) of the important details of the woodsman 's message, forced her to better the organization(28) of the message. Her interpretation(28) and selective attention(28) to the details that pertained to her caused her to have a cognitive representation(28) that portrayed her stepmother as evil. The protype(29) of a woodsman, made Snow White believe she was safe with him, however, their conversation did not follow a common interpersonal script(29) of two people who had just met each other. Snow White 's stepmother was stereotyping(30) her and put a label(30) plus a negative categorization(30) to Snow White as she did not believe Snow White could be beautiful due to, her young age. The stepmother was

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Poseidon is one God against him. Poseidon does everything he can to keep him away from home till Odysseus learns a lesson that Poseidon was trying to get to him. Many Gods also try to help Odysseus, one very helpful one being the god of the wind, Aeolus. Aeolus gives him a sack of wind which helps Odysseus get home but the problem with that. You only get one use out of it so if you open it when you don’t have good timing.

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Poseidon kept this promise as we know and kept Odysseus from home as long as possible. While yes all of this is horrible and was a mistake. We have to remember that Odysseus is human. People make mistakes like this all the time and it just reminds us that we aren't perfect and that is just how it

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For example, Odysseus taunted Polyphemus and incited the wrath of Polyphemus and Poseidon, which led to the deaths of all his crewmembers. That was incredibly unwise, and not worthy of a leader who is responsible for the protection protect of his men. However, Odysseus learns his lesson, and realizes that he needed to grow through his horrifying experience of the earlier deaths. By the time Odysseus finally returns to his home, he not only has a burning desire to avenge his family by killing the suitors, but he also attained a greater understanding for the suffering of others. Even after Odysseus had satisfied his desire for revenge by killing the suitors, he refuses to gloat, and made sure

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In these cases as well as others, the villain is humbled by his defeat by the hero as is the case with Odysseus vs the gods. Although Odysseus is considered a hero by most, he is cruel, controlled by his temper, and more similar to a villain than a hero. Odysseus goes through not a hero’s journey, but a villain’s journey. He returns humbled to his home which has been broken while he was away.

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A common character archetype can be found in the main protagonist, Snow White. Her innocence and purity constantly demonstrated throughout the progression of stories represents society's expectation of women and the need for ladies to be beautiful, rosy-cheeked housewives to proud, courageous individuals. The texts represent the role of women in society at the time of publish and by analysing each text and the time period it is set

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When reading Anne Sexton and the Grimm’s versions of the tale the reader may begin to be very disappointed and think there has to be more to Snow White than her “China-blue doll eyes” (Schacker et al., 386). Even her name, Snow White, is nothing more than a simple description of her appearance. The dwarves and prince in the story see her as nothing more than pretty to look at. They even refer to her as an “it” in several instances; for example, in the Grimm’s version of the tale, it says, “But the dwarfs answered, ‘We won’t give it up for all the gold in the world.’” (Schacker et al.,

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However, Zeus saw the two sides of the gods’ feelings towards Odysseus. “‘Great Odysseus/ who excels all men in wisdom... it’s the Earth-Shaker, Poseidon, unappeased,/ forever fuming against him..’” (1.78-83). Zeus created an equilibrium so that Poseidon could take out his anger on Odysseus through punishment, and Athena receives the duty of making sure Odysseus gets home to Ithaca.

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The need for power in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “Snow White” is evident in the evil stepmother’s actions. Upon looking at herself in the mirror every day she asks: “‘Mirror, Mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land?’” (148). Being accustomed to the mirror telling her that she is in fact the fairest in the land, she is in a state of dismay to find out, for the first time, it is her step daughter who is more fair than her.

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Heroism, tends to be difficult to define and remarkably ambiguous in literary works. In the Odyssey, however, Homer clearly defines a hero as a humble, determined, and loyal individual; thus, according to Homer, it is not enough to claim to be a hero, but it is also important to exhibit those qualities that Homer values as heroism. Odysseus, despite claiming heroism, upholds these traits inconsistently, as seen in his taunting of Polyphemus. In contrast, Telemachus, Odysseus’ overlooked son, dramatically grows up over the course of the epic and ultimately reveals his truly heroic qualities by the end of the poem. Thus, because Odysseus claims to be a hero, but fails to remain humble, determined, and loyal throughout the epic, he is not a hero.

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