Welcome to my Odysseus Museum :]

Welcome i am your museum tour guide and i will be showing you the journey of Odysseus! This is our hero in the story "the odyssey"



Odysseus gets over this fear of adventure and then chooses to build the ship.  The hero has to commit to his journey, and therefore is crossing the first threshold in the the hero’s journey.  This means the hero is going leaving his familiar zone, the island of Calypso, into the unknown.  Odysseus has been on the island for years and could have stayed with Calypso who promised everlasting life but instead who chooses to go home to his family.  on this journey he comes across the villian...

Poseidon is the shadow, or villian in the story.  He is always trying to stop Odysseus from getting where he needs to.

From the beginning of the story there is the archetypal mentor to Odysseus, and that is the goddess Athena.  She is crucial to making Odysseus the hero in the story.  “She prompts him to have the courage to be able to act in many situations, she knows all and often uses this omnipotence to aid Odysseus, and she is the one who also aids his son, Telemachus, first by providing the impetus for him to search for news of his father around Achaea in the very first books of the "Odyssey". Throughout Odysseus' heroic journey, the immortal Athena plays a major role in the events that occur, by taking on the look of Mentes and other people along the journey of Odysseus” (www.library.thinkquest.org). 



Here you see a famous painting by Bocklin showing our temptress Calypso.  Calypso is the archetypal Temptress in the story because she leads him away from his destiny and family.  “Woman in particular as the great symbol of life, become intolerable to the pure, the pure, pure soul. The seeker of the life beyond life must press beyond (the woman), surpass the temptations of her call, and soar to the immaculate ether beyond” (Campbell). 

Odysseus crosses the final threshold after defeating the suitors when he returns home.  This is his reward in the hero’s journey.  Odysseus may not be the only person on a journey in this story. Here you see his return to his wife Penelope, who was also on a journey to endure all the pain and suitors til he came home.

Thank you for visiting the Odyssey Hero Museum. come again soon :]