The story is set against the background that after the famous Trojan War, all the heroes are ready to return. It unfolds two story lines: Odysseus, who is wandering abroad and yearns for his return, and Telemachus, who lives at home and yearns for his father. It tells in reverse order the various hardships that Odysseus experienced on the road, and Telemachus on the other side goes to sea to find his father's whereabouts; In the end, the two clues merged into one. The father and son met and punished the suitor jointly. Of course, the end was beautiful.
The Odyssey is definitely a masterpiece, not to mention its grand background and long history, both in terms of the characters and narrative techniques. Odysseus was resourceful and tenacious; His wife Penelope is loyal and virtuous, and adheres to womanhood; Simple loyalty of pig herding slaves; There are also a group of suitors, led by eurymus, who are extremely extravagant and insidious... All the characters are vivid, if not three-dimensional; The protagonist Odysseus is vividly portrayed in all directions. Incidentally, in my impression, the biggest difference between Greek mythology and Chinese mythology is the personality of the gods. The gods in Chinese mythology are gods. They are aloof and above human nature; In Greek mythology, God seems to have no divinity, but rather an amplification of human nature -- the seven emotions and six desires have become increasingly prominent. For example, Hera, the wife of Zeus, should be the most jealous in the world; Poseidon was always angry, and I capsized your boat when I was in a bad mood. It was just willful; There is Zeus, who runs to the world and gives birth to children. I won't say much about this.
When reading the Iliad, the reader may not feel the "fate of ancient Greece", but in the Odyssey, the reader can deeply understand the power of fate. At that time in the book, neither heroes nor gods could escape the shackles of fate. Sometimes, even Zeus, who was superior, could not change the fate of mortals without authorization before the powerful destiny God. It can be seen that the ancient Greeks' understanding of fate had a strong pessimistic color. They seem to think that the three goddesses in charge of fate have woven a web of fate for people the day they were born. No matter how people avoid it, they can not escape the web. Odysseus was destined to suffer a lot on his way back, but he didn't know that the God of fate had planned a series of disasters for him. First of all, when Odysseus returned, he offended Poseidon, the God of the sea, and inadvertently blinded his son, the Cyclops. Thus, the sea god was enraged, and dropped a terrible curse, so that he was completely annihilated and drifted abroad for ten years.
Odysseus was punished by the gods, but he did not give up his hope of returning home because of it. On the contrary, repeated setbacks increased his determination and courage to return home. He faced the punishment of the sea god, repeated obstruction and criticism, and was not afraid. The angry Poseidon tried to change the fate of Odysseus, going against Zeus' will. Unfortunately, he failed, and finally failed. From here, we can see that the ancient Greeks were very persistent about fate, but they never gave in to the arrangement of fate. They believe in fate and know that fate can not be changed, but they dare to resist the merciless fate. Even for better survival, they do not hesitate to fight against fate, even if it is a painful price. In this way, the blind poet also created this immortal epic in the most difficult environment with contradictory feelings and facing the criticism of luck.
The series of seemingly "coincidental" storylines are actually Odysseus' destiny. For example, in the scene of "the cattle in volume 12 offended the sun god and were punished and all their partners lost their lives", Odysseus came to the island of trinacchia after several disasters. This island herds the cattle and sheep of Helios, the sun god. The witch Kirk once warned Odysseus that they must not kill the cattle and sheep favored by the sun god, otherwise none of his companions will be spared, and he will not be able to return home as soon as possible. As a result, his companions were so hungry that they still slaughtered the cattle and sheep on the Helios island. Isn't it all a matter of fate? Odysseus tried every means to change his fate, but he was teased by fate again and again.
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