As a class we’ve discussed the trend throughout The Odyssey so far that shows Odysseus as an unreliable character. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to us as the very first line states that Odysseus is “a complicated man” (1. 1). The storyteller intentionally makes it very clear to us that Odysseus will not always do the right thing, but despite that he’s still the hero of the story. We’ve also discussed that in books 5-12 (the wanderings), Odysseus is narrating much of the story to us. Since he is the only witness to his stories, he could be embellishing or twisting the truth to make himself more of a hero.
One of the characters that comes off poorly in his story is Eurylochus. Eurylochus is first described as causing destruction to the journey by requesting that the men stay at the island of the sun god because they’re tired. Odysseus describes that after Eurylochus’ speech “I saw a spirit must be plotting our destruction” (12. 297). Odysseus describing him in this way makes the reader see Eurylochus as a mutinous, destructive character. Later, the men are all starving on the island of the Sun God and Odysseus talks about Eurylochus by saying, “Meanwhile, Eurylochus proposed a foolish plan.” (12. 338). Eurylochus proceeds to say an arguably not foolish plan, where he says that since the men are all starving to death they should kill and eat a cow of the Sun God.
After he says this, the reader knows it is a bad idea because we’ve been told things that Eurylochus hasn’t. All Eurylochus knows is what Odysseus has told them, which is not the whole truth. The men just think the god’s will be upset, but that it could be fixed with sacrifice. They definitely don’t think that killing the cows will result in their certain death, something that Odysseus did know.
This isn’t the first time that Odysseus has kept a dangerous truth from the men either. When Circe tells him about Scylla she says that 6 of his men will certainly die, and that there is nothing he can do to prevent it except row away quickly to ensure they don’t all die. Then, rather than tell his men that they may be rowing into certain death, Odysseus says, “I did not mention Scylla, since she meant inevitable death, and if they knew the men would drop the oars and go and huddle down in the hold in fear” (12. 224). Odysseus doesn’t tell his men everything that they should know. Does this make him less of a hero? It’s hard to say, but it definitely doesn’t make Eurylochus foolish for doing what he thinks the men should do to survive.
Nice post. Even though Eurylochus is mutinous, and can be childish, I definitely agree with sympathizing with him. If I were in his position, I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing. He poses really good questions for Odysseus, which largely go unanswered.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that Eurylochus was probably thinking correctly when he wanted to kill the cow to feed the rest of the crew. I think he's just unlucky that Helios loves cows so much and threatened to removed the actual sun from the sky, over a single cow. But hey, gods can do what they want. Such as kill all of Odysseus' crew.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why I haven't realized this before, but, since you relate these two incidents, I see that one of them may have caused the other. After Odysseus ordering his crew into the jaws of Scylla, Eurylochus may have lost his trust in him, which made his disregarding of Odysseus's orders more reasonable. And he should have lost trust in Odysseus, because, as you said, he had a history of leaving out important details.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly true that Eurylochus was painted rather unfairly by Odysseus -- how was he supposed to know that eating a cow would have worse consequences than a couple of upset gods? It's Odysseus's fault that Eurylochus doesn't know this, and Odysseus's fault that they eat the cow because they don't know the consequences. So that was a dumb choice on Odysseus's part, but I don't think not telling his men about Scylla was a dumb choice. It's a moral debate as to whether or not the men deserve to know that six of them will die, but from a cold and purely logical standpoint, it makes perfect sense not to tell them. It would have caused too much debate and fear and delayed their journey.
ReplyDeleteEven with Odysseus telling the story from his point of view, I found Eurylochus to be a more sympathetic character, and I think that a book about Eurylochus would be more enjoyable for modern audiences than the Odyssey. Odysseus has gotten pretty annoying in my opinion because he perpetually lies to his crew, who are the people that could help him better if they knew the truth. I think that Odysseus is a brilliant military commander and schemer, but as a person and a hero, his habits are getting old.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Eurylochus seems like the more sympathetic character to the reader. His plan makes sense, particularly given that Odysseus failed to mention all of the information he was given about the sun god's cattle. I think this begins to get at one of Odysseus's problems. It is never his fault. He blames Eurylochus's plan for getting the men killed and yet they most likely would have survived if he had given them all the information.
ReplyDeleteI feel the epic tells the reader (or listener) what they should think pretty often. Your example of Eurylochus is a good point – he is a sensible person, but the epic tells us to dislike him. Similarly, Odysseus himself makes a lot of bad choices (he gets countless people killed, has bad strategy decisions, is governed by his pride, and so on) but the epic keeps telling us how heroic he is and how much we should love him. Maybe Homer should have worked on showing not telling, huh?
ReplyDeleteEurylochus is definitely a more sympathetic character to us now. However, during ancient Greece I think that the idea of a mere sailor to speak out against a captain and a king, would be much less sympathetic at the time. Thus also painted in a much less sympathetic light. That might be why we are painted a picture of mutiny and how his unfaithfulness and doubting led them to their doom.
ReplyDeleteEurylochus was definitely more reasonable than Odysseus gives him credit for. As you pointed out, Odysseus didn't give his men of all the facts. With the situation that confronted Eurylochus, and the things that he knew, I think he made a sensible decision. They were all starving, and would soon die anyways if they didn't eat the sun god's cattle. He even pointed out that it would be better for them to die by the wrath of the gods than to slowly starve out on the island. So, maybe even if Odysseus had told them that eating the cattle would mean certain death, they would have done it anyways.
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying about Eurylochus (he was definitely a sympathetic character) but I think if Odysseus was trying to paint Eurylochus as the bad guy, he would have just lied and said that he told his men how they would all die if they ate the cattle. Because Odysseus says only that he said "there was a dreadful danger" if they ate the cattle, he allows Eurylochus to be seen in a more favorable light. In that case, when Odysseus calls him foolish, it could be simply an objective statement - from Odysseus' perspective, that decision was foolish. It makes me wonder whether Odysseus is trying to show Eurymachus in a bad light or just reflecting on one of his dead crew-mates' decisions.
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