The Odyssey

In Books 20-24, Odysseus finally moves from the periphery of his household to reclaim his place as the master of the house and the king of Ithaca, and his final preparations reveal his own suppressed trepidation over the violence to come, for even Odysseus realizes that his task is a daunting one. On the night before the contest with the bow, Odysseus reveals a moment of weakness that humanizes him somewhat. As he lies awake in his hall and tells Athena that the odds are against him, he betrays an inner sense of despair upon realizing that even after the suitors are dead his battle will not be over, for “[t]heir kin will come for revenge too” (197). However, Athena takes this opportunity to remind Odysseus of The Role of Divine Intervention in Human Affairs, stressing that the gods will help him and he has no reason to be afraid.

The role of the gods also grows more evident in the increasing signs predicting the suitors’ deaths. Later in Book 20, for example, the suitors burst into hysterical laughter when one of the suitors, Ctesippus, tries to hit Odysseus with the hoof of a slaughtered bull. Hinds uses elements of horror in his illustrations of the scene, for in his vivid depictions, the suitors appear grotesque as they open their mouths in inhuman, derisive laughter. The effect is further heightened by illustrations of the seer Theoclymenus’s vision of the palace’s soon-to-be blood-soaked walls and ceiling, and the suitors themselves are covered in a dark fog that imbues the art with an ominous tinge. The effect of the artwork is heightened when Theoclymenus proclaims, “Poor doomed men! Can’t you see what the gods have in store for you? This hall is filled already with the shades of the dead!” (201). The suitors’ lack of awareness thus becomes yet another sign of the gods’ disfavor, and it is clear that their impious, unjust behavior has incurred divine wrath and justifies Odysseus’s imminent killing spree in his own halls. Indeed, it is the goddess Athena who repeatedly tells Odysseus that he must kill all the suitors, and during the bloody battle that follows, Hinds depicts Athena’s efforts to directly help Odysseus (221, 224).

The final books show Odysseus embracing The Challenges of Heroism and Leadership. Upon returning to Ithaca, Odysseus can only reclaim his house and his kingdom by killing the suitors who have been “consuming [his] goods, seducing [his] maids, and courting [his] wife” (213). Thus, by the very act of reclaiming his title, Odysseus also displays his fitness for the role of king; in a bloody battle against an overwhelming foe, Odysseus emerges as the victor, proving himself to be the only man worthy of the title of king. 

The narrative also indicates that his responsibilities as a ruler require him to know when to punish and when to show mercy. During the slaughter in Book 22, as the battle turns against the suitors, several men beg Odysseus for their lives, and Odysseus deals with each of them justly. While Odysseus executes the “priest who prayed that Odysseus would never return and that [he] might take [Penelope] for [his] own” (225), he lets the minstrel Phemius and the herald Medon live, understanding that they were forced to entertain the suitors against their will and were always loyal to Odysseus and his family.

With the suitors dead, Odysseus can finally set his house in order, but even this task requires a measure of cold brutality and judgment. He executes the maids who were disloyal to him in his absence, and only then does he present himself to his wife Penelope. This moment, more than any other, emphasizes just how long Odysseus has been gone and just how drastically he has changed. Faced with her long-lost husband but still unsure of his identity, Penelope demonstrates that she is just as clever as Odysseus in her way, and she sets him yet another test. She is initially aloof, and only when he describes the “secret” of their bed does she finally welcome him with open arms, having satisfied herself that Odysseus is who he claims to be. Penelope’s caution highlights her virtues as a wife and her loyalty to her husband, as well as her cunning. No less clever than Odysseus, she uses her intelligence to confirm her husband’s identity, just as she has been using all of her diplomatic skills to keep the suitors at bay. In these panels, Hinds’s illustrations focus on the characters’ faces and emphasize the emotionality of the scene: Odysseus’s surprise at Penelope’s coldness is vividly captured, as are Penelope’s tears of happiness when she finally recognizes her husband.

The Importance of Family Loyalty is further demonstrated when Odysseus makes a special trip to reunite with the oldest member of his family, his father Laertes, who lives away from the palace in his orchard. Odysseus presents himself to his father without testing him, and in this scene, Hinds deviates from Homer’s The Odyssey, for in the original version, Odysseus does initially lie to Laertes about who he is. This final reunion brings together three generations of Odysseus’s family: Laertes, himself, and Telemachus.

Now that the household is intact once again, Odysseus is ready to face his final threat: the families of the suitors, whose wrath threatens to continue the cycle of violence and revenge. As the two sides are about to clash, however, Athena presents herself in a dramatic full-page panel, telling everyone to drop their weapons and to make peace. The scene serves as a deus ex machina, or “god from the machine,” a literary device derived from ancient Greek plays, in which the image of a god descended onstage to bring the story to a neat conclusion. Just as the gods have intervened throughout Odysseus’s journey, they impose their presence once again to ensure that there is peace on the island of Ithaca. As Athena tells Odysseus, he “must put away [his] sword if [he] would live in peace” (247), and this comment forces his recognition that he can no longer treat his home like the battlefields that he has conquered overseas. For Odysseus to rule his kingdom in peace, he must discard his identity as the warrior who sacked Troy and killed the suitors. The narrative therefore ends on a hopeful note as Odysseus begins a new stage of his life, one that is defined by peace and family rather than hardship and death.