Odysseus before and after Circe in Homer's Odyssey

[PaulC]

I'm not a student, and I'm not doing homework. I'm just stuck on a malformed insight. Circe is a transformer, and somehow I think we're supposed to understand that Odysseus is different in an important way after his experience with her. But I can't figure out how he's different.

How is he different? How do we know?

Thanks,

Paul

[JuniperWoolf]

Well, he became an adulterer, for one.

[Ecurb]

His son that he has with Circe ends up killing him, for another (although it isn't in the Odyssey). Odysseus was an adulterer already, so "became" might not be the right word.

[prendrelemick]

The story within a story format of that part of the book makes any assesment difficult. How can a transformation be assesed when the whole story - before and after Circe - is being told by the transformed man?

However reading between the lines, I think his meeting with Hermes just before he confronts Circe, is where a change occurs. Walking and talking with Gods inflates the courage and ego, and he is able to dominate the sorceress.

[PaulC]

You're right. The story within the story format is why it's hard.

I'm thinking now that the pre-Circe event with the bag of winds from Aeolus and the post-Circe event with the sirens are particularly indicative of Odysseus' transformation. He expresses leadership differently somehow after Circe than he did before. His men are self-absorbed and lacking in self-control when they open the bag from Aeolus looking for gold. And Odysseus steered the ship himself that whole time because he didn't trust them. But with the Sirens, he does trust them not to un-plug their own ears and not to listen to him order he be untied. They express personal self-control, and a real commitment to his identity as a leader by being able to give him the singular experience of having heard the sirens.

But is his transformation connected to Circe? I think it is. Hermes tells Odysseus he can trust her if he makes her take a vow. And she invites Odysseus to her bed "...so that in love and sleep we may learn to trust one another." Something about the experience transforms him.

[prendrelemick]

Possibly so. He may be a better leader after Circe, but that could be because of what she has told him, rather than magical transformation, he has knowlege of where to go and what lies ahead. Foresight is very handy to a leader.

Of course this being a Greek tale nothing is quite straight forward, it is his crew and not him who leads in the decision to leave her island.

[PaulC]

Yeah, now I'm poking holes in my leadership theory. Basically the same thing that happened with the bag of winds before Circe happens with the cattle of Helios after Circe. Odysseus falls asleep, and his men disobey his orders and kill and eat the cattle.

[JBI]

Yeah, now I'm poking holes in my leadership theory. Basically the same thing that happened with the bag of winds before Circe happens with the cattle of Helios after Circe. Odysseus falls asleep, and his men disobey his orders and kill and eat the cattle.

It's all a parody on manners - Odysseus leaves and his countrymen eat his estate and hit on his wife. Homer loves to play with liege-subjects, host-guest dichotomies. Circe herself at the beginning plays a similar game of tricky host, as does the Cyclops.

[prendrelemick]

Good point JBI, look how the whole thing started. Homer tells us again and again that Paris' big crime was his abuse of the sacred Host/Guest relationship. Helen was just a detail.