Sunday, 10 April 2011

What are examples of Greek values shown in the Odyssey besides hospitality and family values?

I would
say that one of the most striking example of Greek values displayed in 's work comes when
Odysseus tours the underworld.  The Greek value of honoring the dead as well as the immense
respect that the Greek culture had towards the human soul comes out in this instant.  Odysseus
travels through the underworld and does not silence the voices of the dead that inhabit it.
 Homer is able to construct a setting in which Odysseus acknowledges a form of reverential debt
that the dead have paid in order for Odysseus to be in the land of the living.  When Odysseus
listens to the different stories of the different souls in the underworld, it highlights the
Greek value of respecting the dead.  Odysseus does this in Book XI in his tours of the
underworld.  At the same time, I think that Odysseus' experience highlights the Greek value of
the immortality of the soul.  The dead are not really "dead" in the traditional sense.
 Achilles embraces this as he gives his own opinion of mortality to Odysseus as one in which
life, in whatever form, is to be revered.  Hearing this from one who has passed into another
realm is another form of respecting the dead and the notion of the soul's immortality.  Both
Greek values are present in the moment in which Odysseus voyages through the
Underworld.

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