Odysseus Reborn: Parallelism between Odysseus and The Postmodern Man

The mythical character of Odysseus has been a recurring figure since his first introductions, in the Great Greek writer, Homer's works around 700 BCE, in the, 'Illiad', and, 'Odyssey'. He has been invoked over the ages to suit the means of the said eras, trans-morphing the character of the Classical Greek Hero to meet the desired ends of the poets, authors and periods. The aim of the paper is to deconstruct the works where he has been mentioned and thus in turn construct the character itself. This will be done through the famous works he has been mentioned in, such as Virgil's 'Aeneid', Dante's 'Inferno', Horkheimer and Adorno's 'Dialectic of the Enlightenment'. In doing so, the paper shall establish the grounds for Odysseus to come out as a character that suits all ages for a good reason. Furthermore, a Psychoanalytical analysis and study shall establish his relevance and stand in the Postmodern age that we live in, which shall aim to decentralise popular notions, moving away from the modernist experimentation towards the postmodern appreciation of the classical character as one, who at the true core had been formed with such intricacy that writers have been forced to adapt him in their works, time and again.


The Classical Greek Hero: Odysseus
Odysseus is the protagonist and Greek hero of the renowned epic written around 700 BCE, by Homer, which recounts the tale of Odysseus's journey back home, after the events of the 'Illiad', another Homeric poem telling us of the revered tale of the Trojan War. While 'Illiad' gives us some account of Odysseus and his ways, it is in 'the Odyssey', that we see him in his crudest form. The importance of the book is such that it will lay down the foundations of the character, which will resonate through ages to come, moulding the Greek hero into various renditions.
The trueness of the character can be recounted through the various events that take place in the 10 years that take him to reach home, a journey that should have, in reality, taken merely a period of 14 days.
For our purposes, to establish the originality of the character, we shall discuss one famous event from the epic. This will, in turn, be used to correlate with the next part of this paper, such as done by the playwright, Terence P. Logan, in his paper, 'The Characterization of Ulysses in Homer, Virgil and Dante: A Study in Sources and Analogues', to establish the connection between the Heroic Odysseus and the Vile Ulysses.
In Book 9, when on the island of 'Scheria', after it is revealed to King Alcinous that the figure they have been harbouring is indeed, after all, Odysseus himself (Homer 10-21); it is demanded by the king to tell him of his adventures if he hopes to get their much-sought help. So Odysseus recalls that after the events of the Trojan War, as they left for Ithaca, the crewmen in their greed took one more stoppage to pillage a land (50-70). After they are chased back by its inhabitants, as the ship sailed, strong winds threw them off course, to the island of the . Here, in the account of what happens between the Cyclops Polyphemus and Odysseus, do we see the courageous, bold, witty and clever hero of the epic, take a stance. SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH e-ISSN: 2582-3574 p-ISSN: 2582 In doing so, we see the many heroic talents of Odysseus play out but also witness his hamartia, which is that of 'Hubris', the personality trait of an inflated ego, alongside arrogance. is the motto of enlightenment."  And thus it was seen as something which was to lift man from myth and religion into the age of reason and intellect.
Max and Adorno in their book, speak of enlightenment as a mechanism that was intended to be an instrument in enhancing the life of humans with the modern man as its main subject. This basic gesture of self-rejection in the name of self-reclamation, Adorno labels as

cunning (Max and Adorno 39).
Odysseus throughout his journey is seen running recklessly towards danger, as an unhealthy way of going about the act of self-preservation, a key trait of a Bourgeois individual (Max and Adorno 24). Next, he is seen outwitting mythic forces and ever trying to be at loggerheads with the Gods, whom instead of offering sacrifice to, he cheats. Max and Adorno go on to say how the deals he offers are a form of deception, fooling the Gods such as Poseidon. In the sacrifice of selfish desires, by not accepting tempting offers of the Gods, Odysseus promotes selfhood but at the same time becomes a victim, as in the pursuit of upholding selflessness; he has now become a victim of sacrifice.
From the above account, we see how Odysseus in his pursuit of self-preservation renounces his own identity, a self-reclamation that works as a paradoxical endeavour. During his voyage, he starts to lose himself, the changing behavioural aspect that can be seen due to the aftermath of war, and even after his return to Ithaca, the trauma of it all still has a detrimental effect on him. This is reflective of the modern war veteran when he has returned The postmodern poem that we will be referring to for our purposes is, 'Odysseus to Telemachus', written by the eccentric, bold, witty postmodern Nobel Laureate (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1987) Joseph Brodsky (1940Brodsky ( -1996   A major part of PTSD patients apart from the trauma they face, is their flight or fight response or their coping mechanism. For Hemmingway, these mechanisms included drinking excessively, getting involved in dangerous sports and activities such as bullfighting and hunting; and as for Odysseus, we see the coping mechanism in his egocentric attitude that drives him to take on the forces of Gods such as Poseidon, Nymphs such as Circe and Demigods such as Polyphemus.
The results we draw from comparing the two figures, and the instances of trauma and hopelessness, we are able to identify key features of the psyche of Odysseus, and thus bring his relevance to the postmodern times as a man who if existed today, would be idolized as a hero and veteran but would at the same time be viewed as a classical figure that exhibits all the mental trauma that war brings. Through the study of the character, we see how the psychology of our human mind, though its severity was discovered only recently, has had its roots for longer than we can even fathom.

Conclusion
And thus as we apply the definition of trauma by diving deep into the psyche of the Classical Greek Hero Odysseus, and as we run parallels between a figure that existed over 3,000 years ago with that of a postmodern poet Joseph Brodsky and the war veteran Hemmingway, we see that Odysseus is more than relevant in our postmodern times. As we trace the character through the ages, how he has been morphed and used as a means to meet different ends by different writers, we understand that be it the Hero Odysseus, the vile Ulysses, the Modern Subject of Enlightenment, or the postmodern war veteran, he is in the end just a human, with all the troubles and wars that fester incessantly in all our minds, with demons that we harbor that can turn out to be more ferocious than the figures seen in The Odyssey, Aeneid or Inferno. And so, we shall embrace the mythical character of Odysseus as a Postmodern war veteran, a survivor escaping death and above all, who lives on fighting trauma and the war of the mind that Homer leaves out in his works, a war that begins, as for any veteran, when he has returned home. For the war never ends but is just internalised with a war against one's own self and the mental scars that the trauma of war leaves behind.